Worst Christmas Spirit Ever

Years ago, I used to work for JMG CompuSmart in Hamilton. One of the owners - let's call him David (because that's his name) - had what I think might be the worst, most disturbing view of Christmas I've ever seen. Apparently David really, really doesn't like to be disappointed on Christmas morning. To avoid disappointment, David will go out and buy ALL OF HIS OWN PRESENTS.

He has them wrapped, and placed in a spare room in his house. Friends and relatives then come over and speak to David's wife, who lets them know what gifts are "available" for David. The person picks a gift, pays David's wife, and she gives them the receipt and then lets them write their name in the "From" part of the gift tag.

When David first told us this one day at work, everyone got this uncomfortable look on their face and said nothing. Except me. I thought he was kidding. I really didn't think a grown man - co-owner of a multi-million dollar business - could be so infantile. I laughed out loud, and said something along the lines of, "Can you imagine anyone actually being that fucked?"

Problem was, David wasn't kidding.

I was fired a few weeks later. Which I am sure was simple coinincidence.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to all.

Stalker Ads...

Imagine the following scenario: you receive a phone call from a close friend, who tells you that "some people" have been coming around and asking questions about you. What kind of food do you eat? What clothes do you wear? Where do you like to shop? How much do you usually spend?

What's more, it turns out these unknown people aren't talking to just one friend. In fact, they're talking to lots of people. They want to know what kind of beer you drink, what TV shows you watch, how often you eat fast food.

You finally track one of these anonymous question-askers down and you confront him. Instead of denying his activities or apologizing, he says, "Yes, I have been following and asking questions of all the people you know, delving into your spending habits."

Would that bother you?

Now imagine he says this: "I have to tell you, following you around and asking people questions about your spending sure is time consuming. would you mind carrying around this little plastic card and using it whenever you shop? That way I can automatically build a database of all your spending habits so that I can figure out how to best target advertising directly to you. Tailer-made to present the most psycholigically effective advertisments directly to you."

Would you use the card? What if they promised that if you used the card you would get all kinds of free stuff? How much "free stuff" does it take for you to surrender your privacy to an organization who's stated goal is to figure out what advertising you are most vulnerable to and then use that information against you?

It's called Air Miles.

Nothing is free ... especially when lawyers tell you it is.

Nothing is Free

Imagine the following scenario: you receive a phone call from a close friend, who tells you that "some people" have been coming around and asking questions about you. What kind of food do you eat? What clothes do you wear? Where do you like to shop? How much do you usually spend?

What's more, it turns out these unknown people aren't talking to just one friend. In fact, they're talking to lots of people. They want to know what kind of beer you drink, what TV shows you watch, how often you eat fast food.

You finally track one of these anonymous question-askers down and you confront him. Instead of denying his activities or apologizing, he says, "Yes, I have been following and asking questions of all the people you know, delving into your spending habits."

Would that bother you?

Now imagine he says this: "I have to tell you, following you around and asking people questions about your spending sure is time consuming. would you mind carrying around this little plastic card and using it whenever you shop? That way I can automatically build a database of all your spending habits so that I can figure out how to best target advertising directly to you. Tailer-made to present the most psycholigically effective advertisments directly to you."

Would you use the card? What if they promised that if you used the card you would get all kinds of free stuff? How much "free stuff" does it take for you to surrender your privacy to an organization who's stated goal is to figure out what advertising you are most vulnerable to and then use that information against you?

It's called Air Miles.

Nothing is free ... especially when lawyers tell you it is.

Family Photo

This is a picture my sister uploaded to Facebook. It used to have my stepfather in it, but thanks to Photoshop I was able to give the pic a colonectomy.

Frankenbox

Back in my computer tech days, one of my favourite hobbies was building functioning computers out of left over spare parts ... in other words, creating a Frankenbox. I've been out of the computer tech game for years, and as such don't really get my hands on spare parts any more, so I can't really enjoy that hobby much. However, I did have an old P3 1.0 Gig system sitting around, and happened to have a spare monitor, so ....

I had some time to kill yesterday, so I made trip to Factory Direct and picked up a 40 gig HD (for $30.00 ... less than a buck a gig .... wow), a USB wireless network adapter ($25.00). I headed home and downloaded a copy of Windows XP professional .... I mean, purchased a legal copy of XP, and installed it on my computer.

The wireless usb adapter worked perfectly and Frankenbox was on my home network in no time. I'm currently working on transferring all of my music files over to the new system so it can serve as a music server for the network. I'll also be experimenting with Winamp's webcast features so hopefully I can stream my music live online.

Which would be kinda cool.

Yeah, so....

Today I hid from a nice person. She's someone who works with me. She's new here, very nice and friendly, and gets along well with her coworkers. She occasionally tries to engage me in conversation, which is why I hide from her. Because I'm shy.

Most people who know me have a tough time believing that I am shy, but trust me it is the truth. I have a very hard time in dealing with strangers, and quite often feel overwhelmed by their attentions. I don't really know why I am so shy, although I have some suspicions. Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that I find it very difficult to engage people I do not know in converstation. I also seem to carry some kind of air or aura that makes people believe I am not shy; people tend to think I'm just standoffish and rude. So I usually end up pissing people off due to my somewhat offensive defense mechanisms.

For most of us, people come and go into and out of our lives on a more-or-less constant basis. Old friends move away, new friends come into our lives, etc. But when you don't make new friends easily, the process can seem more like erosion. Old friends fade away and are not replaced by new. Until one day you realize that you can count the number of friends you have on the fingers of one hand. I am grateful for those friends, for they are wonderful and delightful people that I love deeply. When it comes down to it, I would rather have a few real friends than a host of casual accquaintences.

Having a small circle of friends does mean that I usually don't get together with them too often. People have their own lives, families, jobs, responsibilities, etc. For those with a large pool of friends its usually not too hard to find someone to hang with for the evening. Having a small circle of friends usually means that if I am in the mood to socialize there is a good chance that everyone I know will already be busy or engaged for the evening. And to be honest, I'm not the best at reaching out to begin with. I wish I was better.

The sensation of loneliness is growing. I have been alone most of my adult life, and had thought that I was more or less used to it. Apparently something has happened to change that, and I find myself no longer content to be alone. I don't mind quiet, but occasionally the silence can become something more than just silence. Any attempts I make to describe it better just seem melodramatic.

An important event happened in my life last summer, and it has changed me. I am no longer content to be alone. I don't know if this change is for the good or not, although currently it seems to be more on the "not" side. There is a longing building in me, a yearning for something amorphous.

Maybe its just a midlife crisis. That would be nice.

Sick of US Politics yet?

Just how much air time can be devoted to subjects that don't actually matter? Take for instance the Republican and Democratic candidate selection process. I'm flabbergasted at the amount of time the press spends talking about who's going to win - Obama or Hilary? Or is it Edwards? - in the various individual states.

Don't misunderstand me, it does matter who ends up winning, and ending up becoming their party's presidential nominee. What doesn't matter are all these shows trying to guess who will win. For example, for the Democratic process, professional oddsmakers put Obama at something like 33%, Hilary at 32%, and Edwards at 27%. Now, perhaps I'm a bit simple, but to me that just means "Flip a three-sided coin".

In most cases, the battle is so freaking close there simply is NO WAY to pick a winner in advance. No matter how authorative the "expert" queried, the fact of the matter is that they are just guessing. And if you examine the experts' track records after the fact, they're usually as wrong as often as they are right. Which is what you would expect from someone who is guessing.

And that's what doesn't matter. The guesses. Yet you can't turn on a television without being flooded with hundreds upon hundreds of hours of television programmind devoted to trying to guess who's going to win the primary. And this is nothing compared to what we'll get once the Presidential race begins to heat up.

Bread and circuses.

F Ron Paul

This is a quick post about Republican presidential contender Ron Paul.

F Ron Paul in the side of the head with an angry wombat.

That is all.

Grandma's Autobiography

I'm lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to transcribe my grandmother's autobiography. A task which I have been taking rather slowly. Too slowly, probably. But anyway, i came across a portion today that I felt really illustrated who my grandmother was. To me, she was one of those special people who lived her life "under the radar". A special person who very few people realized was special.

This is from her story:

It was about 4:30 am when I left for work, and I had to drive through the small town of Canfield. One morning was passing through the village when I saw four-foot flames pouring out of the roof of a farmhouse. I stopped my car and ran up to the house to pound on the door. At first nobody answered, but then a little dog came barking at the door, followed by a lady in her nightie. I told her that her house was on fire, and she screamed for her daughter and husband, and then ran back upstairs.
I saw they had climbed out onto the veranda roof, so I went across the road and got someone to phone the firemen. They came and got the couple off the roof. I heard later that after the fire was out, the woman went back inside and found out that the ceiling had collapsed right on her bed. I guess that was a close call for them. I never heard anymore about it. I just went to work.

Borax

All the windows wore horizontal white shutters, which could be closed on the will of the inhabitants, effectively shutting the house into it’s own reality, it’s walls protected by custom and privacy laws. The vines were carefully tended so as to not block the windows; after all, it was important to occasionally let the light in. At least, that’s what Nancy said, and we pretty much did what Nancy said.

To the outside world she was Nancy N. German (as by friend/brother Toolie was fond of saying, the second “N” stood for Nazi), a dental hygienist in her early forties. Never married, few friends, usually found either at work or at home. As it was, Nancy bemoaned the necessity of her spending any time away from the home. However, money being as it was, something had to be done to bring it in.

Sometimes people ask me why Sammy doesn’t work so my mother (they think Nancy is my mother, because she told them she was) can stay home with the kids. I tell them it’s because Sammy (who is also supposed to be my father, even though the little freak hasn’t gotten it up since 1981) is simple. In the head. And then I do that thing where you poke your temple and twirl your finger. Sometimes I cross my eyes and let my tongue hang out.

As you can imagine, this behaviour hasn’t won me many friends. What it has won me has been a lifetime of abuse and ostrasization. If you have ever experienced life outside of the pack, you will understand me when I say that when you are an outsider, anything can happen to you. My guidance counselor (whose name was Mr. P. Didhee, I shit you not) used to rag on me all the time. He had a favourite line: can’t you at least try to fit in?

The thing was, I could, but I couldn’t, you know. Yeah, lot of times I knew what everyone wanted from me, what I was supposed to do to be normal. Sometimes I could do it, because it was nothing much. Sometimes I could do it, but I wouldn’t, because I thought it was dumb. So yeah, I’ll have a smoke. No, I won’t help you burn ants. I never got that. Where’s the fun in that? It’d be like God putting you into a family where everyone hates each other.

The other thing was, Nancy prefers me to be on the outside looking in. Apparently we can never really trust anyone else, from the outside. No matter what, they have a different agenda, and sometime our agendas will conflict, and they will become the enemy. It was inevitable. And yes, she really does think like that. If there’s one last sweater on sale and you stand between Nancy and her discount, do yourself a huge favour and step aside.

To date, Nancy has physically assaulted seventeen different women during sales at the mall. She has been banned from the mall seven times, but simply returns the next day as if nothing had happened. Mall security just leaves her alone. Can you blame them? Who would want to deal with a gigantic (five foot eleven!), angry woman with rage issues? Not worth the $4.50 an hour.

So everyone outside of the house is an enemy. Pretty intense training for a kid. I have to say, it has come in handy. While my neighbour was learning to play the violin, I was learning to pick pockets. I could hotwire a car by ten. I was driving at 9; I used to prop Sammy up in the passenger side and tool around the neighbourhood. I liked to see how many times I could swerve suddenly and slap Sammy’s head against the side window.

Sometimes a cop would pull me over, so I would cry and do the “my daddy’s drunk and I’m just a little girl” thing, and tell them how I had to drive my daddy home so mommy wouldn’t leave us. That bit worked perfectly every time. Well, one time the cop took me in to the station and put Sammy in jail. I fucked off while the cops were photocopying Melissa Sotheby’s library card (I had also long ago learned the advantages of a set of fake ID).

I’m pretty sure Nancy’s not my mother. I remember someone else, a redhead like me. She used to hold me, and sing me a song. I can hear the song when I’m asleep, but it always sublimates into whispers when I awake. The kind of recurring dream thing that really starts to piss you off by, oh, aged eight. Nancy says the redhead is a false memory, or maybe a movie I watched. Only the dream woman didn’t call me Sarah; she said my name was Lydia.

Sometimes, when I was about six or seven, we would have to do these bullshit assignments when you wrote about your families and what they did, and stuff. The very first one I wrote caused a lot of trouble for me. Nancy had made quite certain that I understood the importance of secrecy, and the value of lies. My problem was, while I understood this on a verbal level, the idea didn’t quite translate into the written.

My first assignment told it as it was. Every grisly detail, including the times that I found Sammy masturbating in a closet/bathroom/hallway/kitchen/McDonald’s restroom/etc. They made me stay after school and talk to a man with a nice voice who had licorice. Luckily I had come to realize by then that when strangers gave you candy, they were out to fuck you one way or the other.

They wanted to talk about my assignment, which I knew right away was bad, so I immediately disavowed all knowledge. After being reminded of my signature, which appeared at the bottom of the written confessional, I immediately switched to story mode. I explained it all as a fantasy, a game I played when pretending to be someone else. It could just as easily have been a pirate story.

Nancy got there pretty quick, and took me and the paper home (although she had to threaten to sue before they would give it to her). Each one was punished by burning; the latter via fireplace, the former via curling iron. You didn’t like to bother Nancy too often, that’s for sure.

I guess maybe I am a bit selfish. Nancy says it’s all for a good reason, the secrecy and paranoia. She says we’re part of an army, a tiny unit hidden away in a sea of hidden units, all over the country, all over the world. When the time comes, we will rise and throw off our disguises, and glory in the death and destruction of all mankind.

That last part pisses me off a bit, because I still haven’t kissed anyone. I’m not picky, boy or girl is fine by me, but if we kill everyone else off, all we’ll have left is guys like Sammy. I’d toss my own salad before I’d kiss that bloated white freak.

But you don’t know, either, because there could be some hot guys on our side too. After the slaughter there will probably be some kind of orgy, I suppose. After all, there ought to be. After all, where’s the fun in fighting for Hell if you can’t enjoy the sin along the way?