the pod bay door

:: I was just on Cindi’s site, and she’s posted about the return of Andy Kaufman. Yes, you read that correctly. I mean, good feckin’ grief. Turns out, the 20th anniversary of his death from lung cancer was May 16, 2004. Yahoo! – YAHOO! – is running a story saying Kaufman is alive and living on the upper west side of Manhattan; don’t they check their sources? Didn’t they see Shattered Glass? His blog, Andy Kaufman Returns, is up and running. Snopes sez it’s all a hoax. But you can’t help but feel just a wee bit suspicious, knowing that this is something Kaufman would pull off, even from the grave. Kinda creepy, eh? Wait! Maybe Yahoo! DID check its sources. Maybe he IS alive!

:: Earlier today, I visited my physician at the Family Medicine Centre in Edmonton. I do that often, for blood pressure checks, mostly. This visit, however, was because on Tuesday afternoon I noticed, or rather, I could feel that my heart beat was higher than normal. I work out 4-5 times a week, 30 mins on a Precor elliptical cross trainer, and usually get my pulse up to ~160 bpm. I spend 5-7 minutes cooling down on the machine, during which time my pulse drops to ~110 bpm, before finishing my workout.

On Tuesday, near the end of my workout, my heart was was pushing 170 bpm for a couple minutes, and it felt good. However, I noticed that when I cooled down, it was still above 130 bpm. The rest of the evening and all day yesterday, I could feel my heart beating faster than normal. Despite having a physical scheduled for June 1st, I decided to see the doctor today. I had an electrocardiogram done, and the test suggested I have a condition called Sinus tachycardia, meaning a P wave greater than 100 bpm. The ECG also confirmed that my heart is beating normally, i.e., there are no erratic rhythms to suggest other potential problems. As well, I experience ventricular ectopic beats every so often, yet the ECG recorded not one VEB (this is a good thing!)

So what’s the upshot? My heart could be receiving extra stimulation, such as from caffeine, wild sex, or nasal medication with Epinephrine as an ingredient. Well, I drink black coffee, maybe 1-1.5 cups in the morning, occasionally a second cup later in the day, and have one or two lattes on the weekend. Been doing that for 25 years. I’m not using any nasal spray. I gave up wild sex a few weeks ago. But I did change my coffee from a Costco-sold brand to a fresh one-pound supply of Starbucks French Roast about a week ago. Hmmmm. The Starbucks French Roast could be driving up my heart beat. Well, Dr Bell is suggesting I lay off that coffee until I see him again, which is like, a total drag. I mean, I don’t smoke, don’t drink except socially, don’t use drugs, there’s not many vices left, y’know.

BTW, I did work out again tonight, kept it to ~160 bpm near the end, and feel fine. My pulse at the moment is 97 bpm…

:: Last night around 10:15 pm, my doorbell rang. At the door was a man in a baseball cap, maybe mid-30s, holding an inhaler. He told me his name and address, (he lives across the avenue), and said that his wife had the car and his credit cards, etc., and needed to refill his daughter’s inhaler immediately, and had no cash, and that he needed four dollars. I studied him for a moment, told him to wait a minute, retrieved a $5 bill, and handed it to him. I thought, what’s five bucks, and he seemed like a nice guy. He thanked me, I asked him to bring me $5 tomorrow when he had a moment, he agreed, and left. I haven’t seen him since.

I’m still giving him the benefit of the doubt for now. If he doesn’t pay me back, c’est la vie, I suppose. Maybe I have too much faith in the basic goodness of people, I don’t know. But refusing his request at that moment didn’t seem like the correct thing to do, and it was only $5, after all.
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:: steely who? the original band names, lists some of the names that Becker and Fagen considered for a band name, before settling on Steely Dan. As if! My favorites are Thunderhurl and Hard Donut. This is most likely another brilliant parody by Walter Becker, who writes the most colourful parody and satire pieces for his band’s web site.

:: Allison (friend at work) told me about The Word Spy: “This Web site is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren’t “stunt words” or “sniglets,” but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources.” The full list is here, along with the Top 100, as measured by page views. Some words and phrases, like metrosexual, jump the shark, google, NIMBY, flashmob, and blog (duh), you will or may recognize.

Among those I’d not seen before, these are some of my favorites:

• wrap rage: n. Extreme anger caused by product packaging that is difficult to open or manipulate. Also: wrapping rage.
• time porn: n. Television shows and other media that portray characters as having excessive amounts of spare time.
• butt call: n. An unintended phone call placed by sitting on one’s cell phone.
• batmobiling: pp. Putting up emotional defenses when a relationship becomes too intimate.
• cankle: n. A thick ankle, particularly one that appears to be a continuation of the calf
• himbo: n. A man who is good-looking, but unintelligent or superficial. (NOTE: This one reminds me of LOMBARD, from the William Gibson novel, Pattern Recognition, which means: lots of money, but a real dickhead.)
• yestersol: n. One Mars day ago.
• quarterlife crisis: n. Feelings of confusion, anxiety, and self-doubt experienced by some people in their twenties, especially after completing their education

:: Regarding my previous post about our provincial leader plagiarizing sources on a term paper, Keith, speaking from experiences as a teacher working overseas, offers a few thoughts on the subject of web theft.

:: There are times when I am embarrassed to be living in a province with leadership characterized by its collective arrogance and close-mindedness. Actually, it’s 99% of the time. Recently, our premier behaved like a spoiled brat, when he appeared before a provincial public accounts committee. When asked to produce a receipt for a golf trip, he lowered himself to the level of Beavis and Butt-Head:

Klein: “Is the honourable member suggesting I am lying?”
Blakeman: “No, sir, I am just asking for the document.”
Klein: “Oh, why would you ask for the document if you are not suggesting I am lying?”
Blakeman: “Because this is the public accounts committee, sir, and we can ask for that kind of information.”
Klein: “Oh, I see. In other words, you’re saying you won’t take my word for it. I want to know if she’s calling me a liar. She doesn’t believe me.”

Blakeman tried to respond, but Klein cut her off three times, repeating: “You don’t believe me.”

The press Klein received following his whining was all negative, even from his usual conservative supporters. He was ridiculed in political cartoons and on radio shows, but the best response had to be from CBC Radio in Edmonton, which produced a 48-second segment, weaving Klein’s schoolboy outburst with Robert De Niro’s “Are you talkin’ to me”, from Taxi Driver, and Joe Pesci’s “I’m funny how, I mean funny, like I’m a clown” sequence from Goodfellas. Listen and enjoy, and consider that this man runs the richest province in Canada, where the next budget surplus could top $8 billion CDN, erasing the last amount of debt the province owes, but a province in which the roads and infrastructure are deteriorating rapidly, and education and health care continue to deal with cutbacks and layoffs. And my apologies to Beavis and Butt-Head, no offence intended.

Oh, and it just gets worse. This morning, in the 13 May 2004 edition of the Edmonton Journal, comes word of the following: A paper Klein wrote for a communications study course at Athabasca University had been tabled in the provincial legislature recently to counter charges that he is insensitive to Chileans who suffered under Pinochet (another long story), making the paper available to the public. Upon close examination, it was confirmed that at least half of the 13-page paper was skimmed directly from an assortment of websites without proper citation or quotations.

On the last page of the report, the premier lists his sources, including 10 websites. Word for word passages from the essay are found on those sites – and a count found 58.7 per cent of the lines in the essay are the same as those on the websites listed.

It’s time for Ralph Klein to go.

:: The images from Iraq, of American military personnel torturing – er – abusing – er – humiliating Iraqi prisoners are causing much debate in the press and media. On Robert’s site, Den Valdron presents an editorial, suggesting that the pictures represent “a culture of pathological thinking and inhumanity”. Derryl discusses the impact of the choice of words to describe what has happened (is it torture? abuse? frat prank?), and how the military attracts not only the best and brightest, but those who also trip on power.

Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show, upgraded its coverage of the war in Iraq from “Mess O’Potamia” to “Giant Mess O’Potamia“. Perhaps most disturbing is how US media giants, specifically those which support the war and the US Administration, are chosing to selectively cover news of the Iraqi conflict. Bill Moyers explains in his column on The Media, Politics, and Censorship. For example:

On Friday a week ago on NIGHTLINE, Ted Koppel read the names of the dead and showed their photographs. But their faces and names were blacked out on ABC stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair accused Koppel of “…doing nothing more than making a political statement.”

But what about Sinclair’s own political agenda? With 62 stations the company is the biggest of its kind in the country and has lobbied successfully in Washington for permission to grow even bigger. Its executives are generous contributors to the Republican party.

Sinclair’s web site as of May 8, 2004, has an explanation for why it chose to pre-empt the April 30, 2004 broadcast of Nightline, in which Ted Koppel read aloud the names of US servicemen and women killed in Iraq. Also included is a letter to Senator John McCain. Ted Koppel insists that the decision to read the 721 names of those who died “was to elevate the fallen above the politics and the daily journalism, to let their names and faces remind us of what has always been true: When the American people fully understand the cause for which our troops are fighting, and when they accept that it is essential to our national welfare and security, no burden is too heavy, no cost is too high.” Joe Conason, author of Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, writing in the New York Observer, responds to Sinclair’s actions.

:: Big Banks. They exist for one thing – to increase the profits of their shareholders. I’ve complained about the continuing decline in CIBC’s customer service before on this site. Recently, I received the latest “Changes to Personal Deposit Accounts and Services” flyer, which lists, among other items, the usual upcoming fee hikes. It includes gems such as:

• Waive Account: CIBC will waive your monthly fee and transactions fees if you maintain a minimum monthly balance of $1,500 – previously it was $1,000.
• Want to withdraw cash outside of Canada? Go ahead, but CIBC will charge you an administration fee of 2.5% of the amount withdrawn, converted to Canadian currency.

The flyer notes that “At CIBC we are committed to providing you with a full range of products and services that help you do the things that matter.” What that doesn’t seem to include is saving money. The type of savings account I had for 20+years, that actually earned interest, was shut down by CIBC last year.

A few days later, Keith sent a note advising that CIBC is closing five of its southside branches, and consolidating their operations at one large, flagship building in a high traffic area. From the 09 April 2004 Edmonton Journal:

This move “reflects changes in the way customers do their banking and their other shopping,” said CIBC communications director Rob McLeod.

“We are moving out of small shopping areas where the potential for growth is limited, into areas where the customers already do much of their shopping.”

It is interesting to note that the one branch on the southside not being closed is in Riverbend, one of the wealthiest areas of Edmonton. Coincidence? According to McLeod, similar flagship branches were opened in eastern Canada, with a very positive response. But I think Keith has it right when he says:

Gone will be the concept of neighborhood banking or staff that you even recognize when you transact your business…I can’t even laugh anymore when I hear talk about how these changes are improving “customer service”.

Long gone indeed.

:: I remain a sports fan to this day, although my passion for following my favorite sports, baseball and hockey, began waning in the 80s. One of my daily rituals is taping SportsCentre overnight on TSN, and watching the highlights in the morning before going to work. TSN, Canada’s equivalent to (and owned by) ESPN, also functions as the Toronto Sports Network – during hockey season, a SportsCentre broadcast cannot go by without some reference to the Toronto Maple Leafs. If the Leafs aren’t playing that day, TSN will offer a preview of the preview of the preview of their next game, or ask coach Pat Quinn what he had for supper. Despite the bias, usually I can expect good reports and coverage as well as an entertaining broadcast.

However, over time, the SportsCentre anchors and writers have worked hard to invent new nicknames for some of the teams they cover, as well as phrases to describe things like time left in the period (1:28 remaining to be played is termed “a buck twenty-eight”), a home run (“he goes yard” or “a 2-run jack”), two home runs in a row (“back to back jacks”), and the result of a goal increasing the team’s lead in the game (“up a bill”).

Some of the incredibly annoying team nicknames heard on SportsCentre lately include:

• the Yotes – Phoenix Coyotes
• the Nucks – Vancouver Canucks
• the Team in Red – Detroit Red Wings
• Josey – San Jose Sharks
• the Bolts – Tampa Bay Lightning
• the Buds – Toronto Maple Leafs

“The Nucks”? It’s a pure form of dumbing down the viewer, or perhaps playing to the lowest common denominator, some version of the beer-swilling, brain-dead, cheese-eating frat boy, who needs booster cables to get out of bed in the morning. I hear the broadcaster say, “the Nucks”, and wonder: 1) is it too much of an expense of energy to say “the CAnucks”?, or 2) is TSN trying to save time on its broadcast?, or 3) has TSN completed market research which suggests that their viewers will think it’s really cool to hear phrases like that?

With this in mind, what a pleasure it is to discover this British web site, Plain English Campaign. It is a simple, stripped down site, supporting “an independent pressure group fighting for public information to be written in plain English.” My favorite section in the Examples page. It includes the complete archive of Golden Bull award winners, Plain-English translations (“before” and “after” examples), and The gobbledygook generator: “You really can’t fail with facilitating administrative mobility.”

Meanwhile, in hockey, The Team in Red is playing the Preds, my Habs face Beantown, the ‘Nucks face off against the Matchsticks, The Buds and The Sens continue their playoff series, Josey and Bluesy continue their battle…you get the imagery – er – graphic representation – er – picture. As for TSN, bring back Jennifer Hedger on the late night editions, PLEASE!

So I’m curious. To those who watch ESPN in the States: Is the same thing happening on that network? Duh.