Fun With Visors

Picture this: you're a passenger in someone else's car, headed somewhere to do some things. The sun is in your eyes, and you have no sun glasses--what do you do? With little forethought, you pull down the sun visor to protect your peepers.

This usually solves the problem. On occaision, however, it also creates one; this happens when the driver has haphazardly stored things under the visor. The driver, hurried, disorganized, or simply lazy, has left a plethora of unsecured papers that await your discovery. You, being a person of some sense, did not expect to be ambushed by receipts, postage stamps, food stamps, pamphlets, Canadian Tire money, baseball cards, business cards, recipe clippings, CD booklets, lottery tickets, speeding tickets, parking tickets, and pornography.

I used to feel embarassed when this happened--like I'd somehow violated the driver's personal space. Now, I just laugh; the entire context is a silly reminder of both the scope and fallibility of human thought. We conceptualize and build increasingly sophisticated and efficient forms of transportation, only to have our important papers fly out their windows as a passenger fiddles with a sun visor.

I have a suggestion for car owners: leave interesting things under your visors! Especially on the passenger side. It's a great way to start conversations and manage your image. Just try to imagine the thoughts of your passenger as a single saline breast implant plops into their lap.

Jogging Shorts

While shopping in Wal-Mart, I noticed a strange pair of jogging shorts. Sure, they were probably labelled as 'outdoor activewear' or 'exercise apparel' or some such nonsense. But I'm going to call them jogging shorts. Anyway, the packaging on these jogging shorts claimed that they had 'anti-microbial' properties. Though my initial reaction was one of laughther and ridicule, I got to thinking about them more deeply.

Do people ever wash their clothing anymore? Did I miss some pivotal moment in the water conservation movement? Back in the old days, we used to take off our dirty, sweaty clothing. We'd keep it all in one place, a magical box called a laundry hamper. At intervals dictated by day, time, or necessity, we would use a washing machine to clean the clothing. The clothing would then be clean but also wet, so it would need to be dried in the air or in another machine called a dryer.

I also wonder this: Are anti-microbial jogging shorts the result of consumer demand? Are there legions of joggers out there, bobbing along to their iPods and worrying about the bacterial orgies going on at their genitals? If I was a paranoid jogger, I'd use these thoughts as motivation! I'd pretend that I was running away, faster and faster, always one baby step ahead of my bodily shame.

Peeping Protectors

I find it hilarious that there is a frosted glass window in the bathroom of my second storey apartment. I infer from this that Spider-Man is a coprophilic voyeur in his spare time.

The Holidays

Here are some tips for enjoying the Christmas holidays. Anyone can use them, but they're designed with the terminal bachelor in mind:

Using red construction paper, cotton balls, and glue, give your pornographic pin- up gals cute little Santa hats! It depends on when you last visited the paper ladies, but glue may be optional.

Surely you have some 'aged' (moldy) fruit sitting in your fridge. Take it out, put it in a wooden bowl, and use it as a centre piece on your kitchen or coffee table. Tell your inquisitive (nosy) guests that the white fur is decorative artificial snow.

(This is a work in progress. I may or may not finish it.)

Unintentional humour in textbooks

I'm nearing the end of my Training and Development course; my final exam is tomorrow night. The textbook is entitled, not surprisingly, Employee Training & Development. I dislike this book because it was written for length and not for clarity. The ideas are there, but the language is so verbose that it becomes a chore to wade through. Well, maybe not, if you enjoy deciphering sentences like:

"The information technology department needs to be involved in the design of any web-based program to ensure that the technological capabilities of the company network are understood and to guarantee that trainees can get access to the browsers and connections they need to participate in e-learning and utilize all of the tools (e.g. e-mail, chatrooms, hyperlinks) that may accompany it."

I have not altered this sentence in any way, though you may suspect that I removed the four or five needed commas. Sixty words--no commas, semi-colons, or any place to take a breath. Not only that, but it has parentheses! More stuff to keep track of. Seriously, if you're reading a sentence aloud and you have to take more than four breaths, or you forget what the first part of the sentence was about, then maybe it should be broken up.

So yeah, this textbook is loaded with these gems; it's very dry and it sucks out what little life there is in a subject. But once in a while the authors try to liven things up, and they fail miserably. Here is my favourite passage in the book; it's a description of how the transfer of training can have negative effects:

"Care must be taken in thinking through how the learned capabilities will transfer to work tasks in the real world. For example, in police officer training, new hires (cadets) practise shooting targets. During practice sessions at one police academy, cadets fired a round of shells, emptied the cartridges into their hands, and disposed of the empty cartridges into the nearest garbage can. This process was repeated several times. After graduation from the police academy, one new officer was involved in a shooting. He fired his gun, emptied the cartridges into his hand, and proceeded to look for a garbage can for the empty cartridges. As a result, he was seen by the gunman, shot, and killed!"

What makes this passage so great is its use of the exclamation point. Without it, the passage reads like a plainly written, vivid anecdote. Having it in there makes it seem like an inappropriate joke. Imagine telling this story at a wedding, half drunk, to distant relatives that you've just met. Now, imagine telling it in an upbeat tone, with your voice cracking just slightly at the end. This is what the exclamation point conveys. It's an author's attempt to add emphasis to a story that doesn't need emphasis. A cop did something stupid and got his face blown off--the story tells itself.

My upstairs neighbour, Kathy, has a sign by her door:

"Please remove footwear here please

Thanks"

Ignore the extra please for now. Let's focus on the word footwear; it seems to imply that she wants her guests to take off things other than shoes or boots. Socks? Geez, if that's the case, I'd hope for her guests' sake that her floor is clean. What if guests have rings on their toes? She'd damn well better have something to keep the rings in, if she's that picky. Or perhaps she means cleats. Good call; cleats would mark up her floor.

So yeah, I'm thinking that she must be frequented by people who wear things on their feet other than shoes or boots. Skiis? This is where I draw the line. If someone trudged all the way up her stairs while wearing skiis, they deserve a special treat--like being allowed to keep the skiis on inside.

Polar Bears

Just for a moment, try to imagine a reality where polar bears don't exist. Or, better still, try to pretend that you've never heard of them.

In a way, don't they sound like bullshit? Like someone made them up to scare children. "Oh, we don't tread on the ice to the north. There're bears up there!" It's almost plausible; many mythical creatures have their origins in real animals. Take a brown bear, colour him white, and stick him up north and POOF! You have the mythical polar bear.

Yes, I'm aware that they do exist; I'm not denying this. It's just that their environment seems so hostile that it's difficult to imagine anything thriving there, let alone something as massive as a bear. That is all.

I don't like people who take up more than their allotted space. You ever meet these people? I'm not talking about overweight or large people, either; just people who seem to think that they have territory that they do not have. They take up three-fourths of a park bench, using their limbs to cover the greatest possible area, or they spread their possessions out in such a way so as to completely alienate anyone who dares to use a public resource.

I met such a person earlier today, sitting at a computer in the library. Here's a recap: He's speaking to a woman sitting at a computer across from him. In order to see her face--which is obscured by computer monitors--he is leaning waaaaay over to the left, practically on top of the unoccupied computer beside him. I choose this computer to settle in at.

I arrive at the desk, clearly in his peripheral vision. He doesn't move; he's still leaned over in my newfound space. I put my bag around the back of the chair. Still, not moving. So what I do is this: I sit down at the desk like he's not there, making no allowance at all for the fact that he's in my space. And, not to my surprise, we brush shoulders.

He reacts by quickly leaning waaaaay over in the other direction, and speaking about me like I can't hear him. His tone is indignant; he speaks to his conversation partner as if I rudely interrupted him. I say nothing; I'm irritated, but I know I effectively made my point. Now it's up to him to mend his wounded pride.

He never quite makes it. He's clearly trying to impress this woman, talking about his job in such a way so as to appear the most compassionate and badass. It's transparent. The woman is not swooning over him, but she does seem interested.

Then, the conversation takes a dive. This guy says, in unambiguous language, that all Jamaicans are into marijuana. The woman is clearly offended, telling him he's repeating a stereotype. He back pedals, trying to explain that he meant that Jamaicans who are Rastafarian are the heavy marijuana users. The woman's tone becomes one of annoyance and disinterest. She doesn't quite buy his explanation, likely due to the fact that she has EARS. Oh, and did I mention that this woman's mother is from Jamaica?

An edge creeps into his voice; he should be apologetic, but he instead sounds angry. He desperately tries to regain control as she disengages from the conversation. He clumsily hints about going out for coffee. She ignores his hints. He asks the woman her name, then proceeds to look her up on facebook. She makes it clear that she doesn't use facebook often, and she makes no effort to help him find her profile. He attempts to impress her with his knowledge of Jamaicans, stating that Bob Marley's father was white. She doesn't care. By the time I get up and leave, I am stifling a grin. Her tone of voice is best thought of as expressing something greater than annoyance and less than anger.

Some thoughts on this interaction:

1. While I did not enjoy watching this woman experience this, it is very satisfying to see an overconfident, inconsiderate jack-off fall flat on his face.
2. I like to think that my assertion of my personal space contributed to his failure.

Hey, I never said that I wasn't a horrible person.

Bravely fought! Or not.

You read it in obituaries, and you hear it in statements read by dead celebrity's lawyers; so and so died of cancer today, but they "bravely fought until the end", or some other nonsense. Bravely fought.

Seriously, doesn't anyone just lay down and die? Don't some people, upon learning that they have cancer, get their earthly affairs in order and then simply let the disease eat them up? I bet plenty of people lay down and die; they receive treatment (or not), but in their secret thoughts they realize that they're fucked. Of course, nobody can publicly admit these sorts of things; that would be too honest.

And what's so brave about fighting cancer? It's a basic human drive to avoid death. People will beg and plead and debase themselves in all kinds of ways if they think that it will prolong their lives, especially if their lives are in the hands other humans or an imagined supernatural diety. Are these acts brave? No. So why is fighting cancer brave?

Numbers and Exaggeration

When you exaggerate using numbers, what is your favourite? Mine is 47, as in:

• Yeah, I told him 47 times to do it.
• Wow! There were like 47 people stuffed into that car.
• I have 47 projects due next week.

Forty-seven is just a fun number to say, and it sounds legit. Rounded, even numbers (100, 50, etc.) sound too exact to be right. Having a higher digit on the end, like seven, almost makes the number seem larger than it is.

Because of overuse, numbers like one million and one thousand simply have no verbal clout left in them. They need to be retired to make room for the 47's of the world. Try it! The next time you're engaged in informal conversation, and you're about to exaggerate, use the number 47. It just feels good.