I Bring Out The Stupid In People

I'm starting to get the feeling that my mere presence lowers people's IQs.  Here some some instances to back up my observation (and these don't even mention the awful drivers I seem to see every time I get behind the wheel):

1. Me: "So, I was reading about this research being done by a doctoral student at Dalhousie University blah blah blah."
   Other guy: "Research by a doctoral student at a university? Sounds pretty sketchy to me."
   Ummmm....you mean at an educational institute where people do research to be recognized (the bread and butter for a scientist) rather than for maximizing profit (like in a corporation)? Where this person will not achieve his dream of a PhD unless he can rigorously defend his research face to face with his peers and superiors actively trying to attack his research?
   Yeah. University research, esp. at a place like Dal, is totally sketchy.</sarcasm>
   
2. After talking about Jesus' standard for adultery ("If you even look at a woman with lustful intent, you have already committed adultery in your heart") someone said "And it's morals like that which prevented Christianity from ever making it big beyond the first century."
3. When discussing the cost of home ownership and whether or not I could afford it, I pulled out my iPhone to use the calculator someone said "Put your calculator away! This is no time to make calculations! You just have to do it!"
4. "You should cheat on your taxes because when you pay your taxes, all you're doing is supporting welfare cheats." Besides the implication that two wrongs do make a right, does this person think the whole tax system exists to give money to "welfare cheats"? A quick and dirty calculation reveals that less than 1% of your actual tax dollars goes to welfare recipients. (Same guy said this as #3.)
5. In reference to someone saying something similar to #4; "Remember that at election time." Yeah, whatever you do, don't vote for the party that's in favour of people cheating the system! Whichever party that is.
6. "You shouldn't complain about a late night party. Free music is always a good thing." Well....unless you have a migraine, or are sick, or have to get up early to work, or, in this exact case, the party is several kilometres away and the solution is to put the speakers up on stands. (This incident refers to Ottawa Folkfest 2014.)
7. "Einstein was an idiot." You lose a lot of credibility when you say this.
8. "The Bible can't be true because the Hebrews never would have been slaves because they weren't black." Because the only slaves in history were black. </sarcasm>.
9. "I f&#%@ing hate unions!" After having lost his job due to a layoff in a unionized environment; instead of been shown the door and perhaps being given a severance cheque (like in a non-unionized place), this person was given the option of 1) leaving immediately with severance pay, 2) sticking around for a year to find another job in the (rather large) organization, or 3) taking some money, going to school to upgrade his skills, then come back to work being put on a priority list to look for a position within the (rather large) organization. He took the third option, and had found a job and was complaining that he might not start at the top of the pay scale, instead of having to work up through a few years of guaranteed raises.
10. Me in December, 2012: "I just have this really ominous feeling that 2013 is going to be a bad year for me." Other person: "You'll just have to make it a good year then.". I knew at that point of a few changes coming up that were going to negatively affect my life. Besides that there was a mass exodus of my social circle. (Approximately 19 friends moved away that year. For context: in January of 2012 I didn't have 19 friends in Ottawa.) Aside from that there were a few things too personal for this blog. By December I knew I was right: 2013 is probably on record as being one of my worst years so far, and the vast majority of the good and the bad (of any year for that matter) was well beyond my control.

Some honourable mentions:

1. "You shouldn't rent because when you rent, you're just throwing your money away." This is an honourable mention because a lot of people say it, and it is technically true, and still may be practically true in some cases, in some parts of the world. But not in Ottawa in 2015. The implication is usually that when you own, you're not throwing your money away. To see why this is wrong, you have to use something called a 'calculator'.
2. "Hello, help desk support? My Microsoft isn't working." This is honourable mention because a lot of non-techies wouldn't know what's wrong with that. However, this was uttered as I was walking through my office. I work in IT.
3. "Canada is the most taxed country in the world." I'm calling this an honourable mention because it's really hard to verify the veracity of this statement. Do they mean the most amount of distinct taxes? The highest tax percentages for Sales tax? Property tax? Income tax? What tax bracket are we talking about? However, it made the list because upon a quick Google search reveals, by most measures, Canada's not even in the top ten.
4. "If you're trying to sleep while your neighbours are partying, just wear earplugs." Have you ever actually tried earplugs? They muffle sound, not cut it out entirely. Also, have you ever tried sleeping with earplugs in your ears? I moved this one to the honourable mentions because it turns out that ear plugs actually do work for a lot of people for some noises. I've found out that I have a weirdly shaped ear that makes it very difficult for any ear plug to stay in. I've tried many types of earplugs. I've twisted, scrunched, pulled on my lobes, done every thing I could think of, but I can't seem to get any to stay in my right ear for very long.

Netflix Won't Take My Money

I want my own Netflix account. I don't particularely want most of the other streaming services for reasons beyond the scope of this post. I want Netflix.

A few years ago I had a roommate living here. When he moved in, he brought his Netflix account with him. My TV has a Netflix app built right in. He put his credentials into the TV, and set up a profile for me so either of us could use the account. Then he moved away, but continued to let me use his account. After a while he cancelled it. So I decided it was time to get my own.

On March 1, 2020 I went to Netflix.ca and created an account. When it came time to pay, I noticed they no longer offered the free one-month trial. I was disappointed, but decided to carry on anyway.

As part of the registration process, I had to give an email and password, and it knew I was in Canada, but didn't ask for a postal code.

When it came time to make the payment, I selected the cheapest option ($9.99/month) and filled in the form. After filling in my credit card information and clicking "Submit" I got a vague error: "There appears to be a problem with the payment method you are trying to use."

That's not very specific. I tried a different credid card, a different browser, a different device, etc. etc. Here are the different things I've tried: (Note Netflix Canada only accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and gift cards.)

1. My laptop
2. Two different desktops
3. Firefox
4. Brave browser
5. Chrome
6. The Netflix app built into my TV (which just told me to do payment details in my computer)
7. The Netflix app built into my BlueRay player (which just told me to do payment details in my computer)
8. MasterCard
9. Visa
10. Putting my middle initial at the end of my first name
11. Putting my middle initial at the beginning of my last name
12. Leaving my middle initial out completely
13. MY NAME IN ALL CAPS
14. My name with only the first letter in capitals

Here are the things I have not tried:

1. A more expensive plan. Maybe this problem only exists on the cheapest plan?
2. A gift card...which may always leave some money on the card.
3. I switched from DSL to Cable Internet (temporarily) so I'm on a different network. Perhaps with this different network I can hit a different Netflix server that may work.
4. I recently got an AppleTV and upgraded my iOS. I can install the Netflix app on each, and the app store says it accepts in-app payments. If I can get Netflix to charge my app-store account, which will charge me, then it's not ideal, but I'd go for that.
5. Use a VPN to try to access Netflix in a different region to see if things could work there. (But they may block a lot of VPNs.)
6. A friend once told me that you can get these "anonymous" credit cards online and use one of those to try. It seems super-sketchy....but perhaps it's something to investigate.

If you Google "Netflix won't accept my credit card" you see that this is a huge problem, and Netflix refuses to acknowledge that the problem may be on their end.

I called Netflix and they sent me a list of questions to ask my credit card companies (and along with the answers of both cards:

Are there enough available funds to cover the charge from Netflix?

Yes

For credit and debit cards, is the card still valid, or has the financial institution recently issued a replacement?

They're all still valid and no recent replacements were issued

For credit and debit cards, can the card be used for recurring billing?

Absolutely

Does the card or account support e-commerce transactions?

Absolutely

Was the transaction processed as an international charge? Does your account support this?

It was processed as a local charge, and I'll return to this question below.

Was the transaction declined for any security reasons?

No, it wasn't declined. More on this below.

Does your financial institution see the transaction attempt from Netflix? Can they explain why it was declined?

They see it as accepted. More on this below

I called both my credit card companies about this. And my cards are both properly set up to accept Netflix. The problem is 100% on Netflix's end. Above I mentioned that Netflix no longer offers the 1-month free trial. I think this may have something to do with it.

One of my banks told me they saw a few Approved charges from Netflix for $0.00.

Very interesting. Here's what I think is what's happening:

Netflix Canada, years ago, sets up a one-month free trial. But before they give out any free trials to a new customer, they need to make sure that customer can pay in the second month. So they ask for credit card details. They charge that card for $0.00 to make sure it works. I figure the psuedo-code could look something like:

At Netflix

// planRate and ccInfo would be from elsewhere.
// I'm just making them global here so you can visually see it.
global planRate = $9.99;
global ccInfo;

function checkCreditCard () {
  planRate = 0;  // temporarily set planRate to 0 for the free trial
  let approval = getMastercardApproval(ccInfo, planRate);
  // the 0 is the $0.00 for a free trial
}

At Mastercard

function chargeCard (Amount) {
  if (applyCharge(ccInfo, Amount)) {
    // It worked!
    sender.sendMessage(true, ccInfo.number, Amount);
  } else {
    sender.sendMessage(false, ccInfo.number, Amount);
  }

Back at Netflix

function checkApproval(success, number, Amount) {
  planRate = 0;  // temporarily set planRate to 0 for the free trial
  if (success == true && number == ccInfo.number && Amount == planRate) {
      successFunction ();
  } else {
      fail ("There was a problem with your credit card.");
  }

If you follow that code through you'll see that Netflix is charging $0.00 and then checking to see if $0.00 was charged. Then when the free trial ended, Netflix Canada removed the planRate = 0; // temporarily set planRate to 0 for the free trial from both functions, and somehow the first function didn't make it to every production server. So on some servers, the planRate (say $9.99) is being charged. On others, $0.00 is being charged. Then in the last function, it's checking if the amount charged is the same as planRate. It won't be on the servers that never got the updated code. Since some people hit a server with the updated code they're able to sign up. Netflix sees that some people can sign up, so they don't notice the problem. They see fewer people have signed up than before, but that's to be expected after prices go up, and a free trial goes away. And I suspect the tech support (no doubt outsourced to a private firm in India) has no way of telling Netflix "We're getting a lot of complaints about this. You might want to look into it."

If I'm right about this, then it's the loss of free trial that's the problem. Some people who have complained about this said that the tech support was able to put a one-time charge through and it worked. Someone else mentioned that using the live-chat feature, the tech support guy was able to have the customer fill out a separate form somewhere.

Aside from the list of questions to ask my credit card companies, tech support suggested I use gift cards. I don't want to use gift cards because the amounts you can buy are never exact multiples of the plan amounts! As of this writing, a basic plan in Canada is $9.99 + HST: $11.29/month. If I could get a gift card for $11.29, or $22.58, or $33.87, etc. then okay. Instead I could get one for $30 and charge 2 months to it and have $7.42 left over. If my above suspicions are correct, then I'd be beyond the free trial part so I could switch payment details to my credit card and it would work. Is it worth $7.42 to find out? If it doesn't work then I'll be forever buying gift cards and always having a bit left over.

UPDATE

In order to get the actual text of the credit card error for this blog, I decided to try signing up again. Just to get the error! But the registration worked! I now have Netflix!

I don't know why. I must be a poor scientist. I altered two variables:

1. I used Chrome instead of Brave or Netflix (maybe Netflix only specifically supports Chrome and not Chromium browsers like Brave. If this is the case, I should abandon Netflix.)
2. I tried using my Cable Internet connection (different networks could hit different servers. I'm now on TekSavvy's network instead of Bell's. (I'm not linking to Bell because I don't want to give them any more traffic.)

Now I'll never know if my suspicions about the new code not making it to all servers are correct. Nevermind! I have some serious watchin' to do.

Q: Can I Please Get Some Quiet? A: Heck no!

Sound follows me around. No matter where I live, no matter what I do, noise follows me. I don’t know if that’s because I’m sensitive to noise, or if a life of being followed by sound has made me sensitive to noise. I had one roommate with a sound system that had eleven large speakers. Even when the gain was low, the volume was so high! You do NOT need eleven speakers that size unless you’re running a theatre or stadium or something!

Below is a list of places I've lived since moving away from home.  The stories are very abridged.  Generally I'll describe a single incident or two.  Those incidents were typically ongoing in each place.  It wasn't one night of being kept awake by a stereo or barking dog.  It was a reoccurring, ongoing event.

Most places looked really good when I moved in, but were torturous when I moved out. (I believe sleep deprivation is a form of torture.)

1. The first place I lived away from home seemed good when I moved in. It was awful for many reasons when I moved out, and I should have moved out sooner. As for noise, the landlord used to wake me up with an air horn if I ever dared take an afternoon nap.
2. Then I lived in a place that wasn't too bad, noise-wise. The only thing that really sticks out for me was when one of the kids was visiting a neighbour, the father would yell across the neighbourhood instead of using the phone. My job had erratic shifts then. One day I'd work 4 hours in the morning. The next day, 8 hours in the afternoon. Then maybe back to the morning. There was no consistency. I was getting up at 3am sometimes, so I had to go to bed early. Sometimes I would be woken to the sounds of the father beckoning the son to come home.
3. The next place I lived seems like a real blessing at first. Then I got a roommate who had a sound system that consisted of eleven woofers. Even when the dial was down to 1, the volume was still high. Then when the other roommate moved out he was replaced by someone with more of an active social life, with the desire to use the house as a hosting spot. Larger gatherings at the house ensued until finally the "party of the year" happened and I spent the night sleeping on a friend's couch at their apartment. This experience turned of me off of living with people.
4. But, alas, my roommate days weren't over. I ended up living with a young couple. They were, and still are, friends. Their place was great when I moved in. I had the option of taking a room in the basement, or a room upstairs. I took the room upstairs. We all worked/went to school in the day. Then they switched to the afternoon shift at their jobs and would come home at 1:00pm playing the TV rather loudly in the next room. I couldn't sleep.
   But no matter. The basement bedroom was still available. I moved to the basement room to get away from the noise. But since allowing me to get sleep is a mortal sin, they took on some cat-sitting duties. They already had two cats and one of their cats would fight with the cat they were sitting. They would chase each other all across the floors above me, and down the stairs to the basement and back again. All. Night. Long. There was also the neighbour who would put her dog outside and let it bark. She would do this before she left for work at night, and when she got back in the morning. The only way to get 8 hours of sleep was to go to bed right when she left for work. Sometimes she would leave her dog out so long I'd get frustrated and let it in myself.
5. By this time my friends were saying "Oh, Andrew, you just complain too much! None of your places can be that bad! You're just too sensitive." Then I subletted for a couple of friends in a nice apartment for a summer while they went back home. It was wonderfully quiet for the first two months. I made a point of talking about how much I was finally really enjoying life because I could finally get some sleep; at night and afternoon naps to my heart's content! Then "the heavy weight champions" moved in upstairs. (My friends' name for them. Not mine.) The (rather large) kids would stomp around making a terrible racket until 10:59pm. It started when they moved in. They moved in at about 10:00pm with a stereo blasting.
   
   That was a terrible situation which lasted for me for a month until I moved into my first one bedroom apartment. Apparently there was some domestic abuse, and drug usage going on up there. They were eventually evicted and the kids were taken away by Child Services, but not until well after my subletting situation ended and I had moved out.
   When my friends moved back in, they complained about their upstairs neighbours and I would say to our friends "SEE?!?!?! It's NOT JUST ME!!!!!
   At this point I started to realize that noise could really lower quality of life. As I looked for my next place to live I would ask landlords how quiet the place was. One landlord told me "Oh, it's really quiet! You won't hear a thing. Well...if someone in another unit is watching TV, you'll hear it."
   WHAT??!?!! That's not quiet! Quiet is when your neighbour has a party, and the most upsetting thing is that he didn't invite you, not that it's keeping you awake. Quiet is when your neighbour is a professional drummer and you have no idea.
6. I found a one bedroom apartment in the building beside the place I was subletting. That made for an easy move.
   I had been assured that the place was really super quiet with few noise complaints.
   Then I moved in.
   The apartment had walls that were so thin I could hear when my neighbours (a young couple) would fight — and when they'd make up. (It didn't help that the boyfriend's name was Andrew.)
   But they weren't the real problem. It was the apartment two floors up and one over. They would play their music so loud it would rock the building. One night we fought all night. They'd play music. I'd call the cops. The cops would show up. I'd buzz them in. A couple of minutes later the music would stop. 15 minutes later it would start again. Rinse.  Repeat until morning. One time they all just passed out, and the supers had to cut electricity to their room to get the music to stop.
   Oh yeah, and the apartment across the hall from mine had been converted into a metal shop. They would cut metal first thing on Saturday mornings.
7. Then I moved in with Craig. We moved into the apartment where the heavy-weight champions lived. It was on the top floor. I knew that it would be mostly quiet. I never heard the neighbours on the sides. (Actually, right next to our unit was a storage closet, so that takes care of that!) This was the good place. It was good when I moved in, and mostly good when I moved out. It's the best place I've lived since moving away from home. It had it all - cinder blocks between units, a balcony, reasonable rent, free parking, good landlords (most of the time), the best layout I've ever seen, and location. And Best. Roommate. Ever.
   Every now and again Craig and I would be sitting in our living room and I'd be annoyed and say "I wish they'd turn that music down! It's really annoying me!" Craig would say "What music?" I'd tell him to listen. He'd say "Oh....That music! That's bothering you?"
   See, our apartment building was one of four buildings, each shaped like a capital L arrange in such a way to form a large rectangle from above. We were in one corner. I was hearing music coming from the building kitty-corner from us. It was then that I realized I had super hearing.
   There were some problems there but they were mostly fixable. The people at the end of the hall were noisy. Funny thing is: they weren't the tenants. The units were rented by a construction company and the company would put its employees there. It's really hard to evict a personal tenant. It's easier to evict a business. And if they get in trouble, those people lose their jobs. They had the most to lose, yet they were the worst!
   Someone, towards the end of the year - around exam time - got two little dogs that would yap constantly if they were left alone. The yapping could be heard all over the building. She (the owner of the dogs) was eventually told to either get rid of the dogs or move out. I'm not sure which she chose because I moved to Embrun to live with the McQueens.
8. At first it was great at Chez-McQueen! It was nice to be living out in the country in a big house with a loving family. (They have since moved away and I miss them terribly!) But living in the basement was noisy. Foot-falls and dropped items above on the hardwood floors would be amplified downstairs. Hearing a pin drop was no problem! In my first semester there, it wasn't too bad. We all went to bed at night and got up in the morning. But semesters after that we all seemed to keep different schedules. Sometimes they would stay up in the room right above my bed working, talking, or having a movie night. Every time someone would lean back in the office chair, the creaking would go down through the chair to the floor and be amplified in the basement.
   
   Eventually I moved upstairs to Bruce's room after he moved away for school. Then a garage band started practising across the street. Goodbye afternoon naps! Robin would often listen to music in her room or the bathroom when she was at home - and sometimes when she wasn't. Jane would have late-night Skype sessions with her boyfriend in BC when she was at home. (The time difference allowed those conversations to happen pretty darned late. I was getting up at 5:30am to catch an early bus, so I was going to bed at around 9:30pm - which was 6:30 in BC.)
9. Then I moved to where I am now. I was told the walls were cement. I found this to be false within my first week. Drywall and insulation. If it's up to code (50 STC) then it's just up to code. My bedroom neighbour had a dog that would yap for a half an hour every night between 11:00 and 11:30. There has been a constant stream of noisy neighbours on my living room side (with the exception of one. I miss her!).
   
   The latest thing is my bedroom neighbour — who has been quiet for the past few years — has a really noisy air conditioner. When the compressor kicks in it causes a very loud omni-directional hum in my apartment that can be heard everywhere in my apartment. It sounds like a Mac truck starting up outside my apartment. And she runs it in all kinds of weather. Even when it's below 10 degrees!  Open a %#%&'n window!
   
   Before moving in I asked about noise complaints. I was told they hardly ever got any. I found out why. One time when my neighbour was blasting music at night in her bedroom (with a shared wall to my bedroom) I called the super. It didn't get any quieter. I slept on the couch that night. When I saw the super next, I asked what happened. He said "Well, I came up and stood outside the door and couldn't hear anything, so I left."
   
   So, apparently those "quiet enjoyment of living" clauses in my lease only apply if I live in the hallway. I also guess that's why they don't get many noise complaints. People quickly learn that they're wasting their time complaining!

And that's it so far.  I've pretty much given up.  I don't know what to do next.  By the time I was at Chez-McQueens I was fed-up with noise. That's when I realized that the universe had been intricately designed to prevent me from sleeping.  I am now beyond fed-up. I am at breaking point. (You've just read that long list. I've lived it.)

So when I flip out over a little bit of noise, it’s not that little bit of noise. It’s years and years of mounting annoyance. That guy who sits next to me and talks on his cell phone on the otherwise quiet bus is a piece of straw testing the structural integrity of the camel’s back.

And at this point I can’t help but being cynical. I have friends that live out in the middle of nowhere. I’m convinced if I moved out there, someone would buy the field across the street and set up something really noisy. Everywhere I’ve lived has looked great in the beginning, but quickly degrades. I feel like I've asked all the right questions, but I either get incomplete or erroneous information.

What's the use of moving? I feel like there's nothing I can do to prevent the likes of Led Zeppelin from moving in next door.  Even if I move into a quiet place, history has taught me that noise will appear.  And it will be worse than the last place I've lived.  It's getting progressively worse.  And my tolerance is wearing thin.

You're probably also thinking "Why don't you just wear ear plugs?"

The only people who say that are people who have never used ear plugs. Ear plugs muffle sounds - mostly high pitched sounds. Bass and air conditioners are low. I put in ear plugs with my ear protectors I got when working around jet engines when I worked for Air Canada. All they do is cut out white noise, allowing the annoying noise to come through louder than before.

Besides that, I have a weirdly shaped ear.  Ear plugs constantly fall out of my ears.  And it's annoying to sleep with ear plugs.  In order to get my ear plug to stay in on that one side, I have to sleep on that side, with my ear lobe folded over to hold the plug inside.
 
The following is a list of places I haven't actually lived, but have stayed and have had noise issues:

1. When I was subletting for my friends that summer, I ended up becoming friends with the supers - a young couple. They asked me to house-sit for them (ie: be a part time superintendent of the apartment building) over the Christmas break while they went away. I agreed. I found out on Christmas night that there was a pyromaniac living in the building. He lit a fire in the hallway at about 2:00am. When the fire department came and took care of the fire, and turned off the alarm, being the temporary Super, I couldn't just go to bed. I had to deal with the firemen.
2. I went to an open house at a duplex. The neighbours on the other side came over to see how the other half lives. I asked how quiet it was. "Oh, super quiet! We don't hear a thing! Well....we hear if the neighbours are snoring. AGAIN! That's NOT quiet! I should have bought the place, and set up my drums in the living room. When they complained I would have said "Hey, you said this place was quiet! This shouldn't be a problem."
3. While, technically I do not live at Uncle Joe's, it is a secondary home to me. I pretty much spend half the year here. Last winter, an across-the-street neighbour got a dog, which she would leave out barking for a half an hour or so at night. And the the neighbours on my bedroom side have got to be the noisiest people in the whole neighbourhood (which is infamous in Ottawa for being quiet, and liking it that way! A lot of complainers, they say.). You'd think that in the winter people have windows closed and they stay inside. Not them! There's a couple of elderly people who watch TV late into the night with the volume blasting. If my window is open (for a bit of fresh air) I can hear their TV.
   
   And the younger folks in that house created a fire pit in the back yard, so as long as it's not snowing, or insanely cold, then often on weekend nights they go and have parties in the backyard while I'd be trying to sleep. Recently, the day after I came back from a long, tiring weekend trip I was so tired I just needed a rest. As I slipped into a nice afternoon nap they decided to have an outdoor party where the speakers shook the ground. There was nowhere in the house I could go without hearing and feeling it. (Even as I write this at 12:30am, they were out on their balcony yakking away until just a few minutes ago.)
4. A friend of mine has an apartment downtown. She has accepted a one year assignment out of province starting this fall. Knowing my pain she wanted me to sublet her apartment where she "never hears anything." She went away for the weekend a couple of weeks ago and offered to let me "test drive" her place. I did. I was woken up at 12:20 on Friday night to the sound of voices in the next unit. At 3:20 I gave up and went back to my own apartment to sleep. She apologized and was adamant that almost never happens. She hadn't heard those neighbours in two years. I went back the next day, and the weekend did get progressively better. But I'm still not taking that apartment for the year!
5. About a month ago (from when I wrote this) I went to an open house to a town-house condo near where I live. I was assured by the agent (who also lives in that set of condos) that the dividing walls were made of cinder blocks. "You'll never hear anything! I never do. These owners never do. You won't need to do any sound proofing. It's fine as it is." I did not pursue that particular condo but I found another one in the same area. An end unit. I got as far as the home inspection where it was revealed that there were no cinder blocks between the units; just drywall, studs, and insulation.
   I'm getting really tired of being lied to about these things. Most people are not as sensitive to noise as I am. Just tell me the truth. Someone else will rent this apartment or buy this house.

I've noticed that people generally assume that every body else has the same level of noise sensitivity that they do. I'm really careful about being quiet because I assume my neighbours hate my noise like I hate theirs. But they assume I don't mind their music and sound of dogs barking. (I do.  I hate it.)  My living room neighbour thinks that pounding on the wall is the universal signal for "Hey, I really like this song. Please turn up your volume so I can more fully enjoy it." For me, it's hard to conceive that people might not mind my noise. For others, it's hard to conceive that a barking dog is like nails on a chalkboard.

A friend was over at my current apartment when my living room neighbour started playing their stereo one evening.  She saw my reaction.  She said "That's not normal!  You weren't just annoyed.  Your face went red.  Your lip started quivering.  Your voice changed.  The content of what you were saying wasn't you.  You got hot, like feverish.  Your shoulders got all hunched.  Your breathing became shallow and quick.  You looked like you were on the edge of a full-on anxiety or panic attack!"

It's frustrating living in a world where people don't even believe that such a reaction can be caused by noise, and they blame me for "over reacting."

Our money-driven world seems obsessed with cramming as many people in as small quarters as possible (think airplanes and new condos), don't do a thing beyond legal minimum requirements to reduce annoyances, then wonder why air/road/other-rage is such a problem!

I'm An Artist Too (160)

I Hate the Phone

I hate using the phone. I hate using it at work because it's an interruption. If you IM or email me, I don't have to leave "the zone" and can get to you when it's convenient - which could be when my code is compiling, or something similar.

I hate using the phone outside of work because it's so inconvenient. I have to hold my iPhone up to me ear (and no, I am not getting one of those Bluetooth earpieces). So I've lost the use of one hand. A phone call can take a long time - at least with the people I call it can. Then there's the annoying hand-shaking procedure; "Hey, it's Andrew. Howzit goin'?" "Not bad, and yourself?" "Oh not too shabbs." yadda yadda yadda "Well, I guess it's time for me to go." "Okay, thanks for calling." "Alright. I'll talk to ya later." "Okay, have a good one." "Okay, you too." "Alright, g'bye." "Buh-bye." *Click* The engineer in me sees all that data being translated in the name of social convention. That doesn't happen with IM. Of course, skipping it in a voice call would be rude.

Speaking of rude, there are lots of situations where talking on a cell phone is rude - however socially acceptable. Most people would agree they hate hearing one-sided cell phone conversations, yet a lot of people do it. Unlike land-line calls, cell phone calls can take place in public; on the bus, in line at the store, in a theatre, in a library, etc.

Then there's all those times both people on the phone speak at once, or the reception is bad, or someone can't hear, either because they're not holding the phone in the exact right part of their face, or the other person isn't holding it right, and the sound gets muffled, or silenced, or the talker sounds far away. Then, with these touch screen phones, the buttons are right up against your cheek. I have an iPhone, and my cheeks have hung up on a lot of people. One friend recently called me, and her cheek kept pressing the buttons on her touch-screen phone.  I kept hearing "Beep beep beep." It was really annoying.

And let's not forget about dropped calls. I haven't had too many, but they do happen. Some people experience them quite a bit.

Instating Messaging (IM) seems to avoid most of those problems. IM just takes a minute for each one, and can be responded to on convenience. It also gives you time to think about your response. A little bit of reception is the same as strong reception. True, it might take both hands to IM, but it's for a much shorter time.  Public is almost the exact same as private.  No dropped calls.  They can be composed out of reception (like on an elevator) and sent when reception returns.

I consider IM to include texting, tweeting, Facebook chatting, MSN, and other similar technologies. (I don't consider emails to be IM because they can be, and often are, longer.)

Ask anyone who tries to call me. They'll tell you they can't get a hold of me. But people who IM me hear back pretty quickly.  I can take a few seconds out to text you, but a phone call may require lots of time to be set aside.

In fact, here's a list of things I typically do during the day that won't stop me from IM, but will stop me from a voice call:

• Lying in bed ready to go to sleep
• Riding on a bus
• Cooking
• Eating
• Being with a group of friends. (ie: a group large enough where it won't hold things up or seem rude if I IM.)
• Being in a large meeting where my presence is required, but full attention isn't, like Town Halls
• Waiting in line
• Waiting in the theatre for a movie to start
• Church. (Yes, I admit it. I'll do a small amount of IM at some points during church, but a voice call won't happen.)
• Watching TV
• Reading.
• Spending time in Chapters (Bookstore chain in Canada)
• Anywhere where silence is important
• Riding in someone else's car
• A classroom
• If I'm nearing my low minutes-cap on my voice plan
• If I have a laryngitis (Hasn't happened in a while, but you never know.)
• When long distance might be an issue. Don't call me when I'm on vacation in Halifax, but feel free to text me.
• Any other time I just don't feel like talking
• When I'm trying to co-ordinate plans with multiple parties.  I can have multiple simultaneous IM conversations, but only one phone call at a time. Of course, you can always do 3-way conversations with the phone, but these are long and tedious compared to IM.
• If I'm trying to have a technical discussion with people and we need to trade programming code, or screen shots, or something visual.

When phone/video chat is useful:

• When I'm communicating for the purpose of catching up, and/or staying in touch. In this case we set a large chunk of time aside to simply communicate.

In other words, if you're wanting to talk to me on the phone, good luck with that. :) My uncle called me 6 days ago. But I was with a friend waiting to be seated in a restaurant, so I didn't answer. I will return his call. Eventually. I promise.

UPDATE: I just found this comic from The Oatmeal that graphically (and humourously) illustrates some problems with phone calls.

Ontario Driving Laws

I'm from Nova Scotia. I learned to drive in Nova Scotia. Then I moved to Ontario where I have lived in Sault Ste. Marie, Toronto, and Ottawa. I have noticed there are a few different laws in Ontario that you may need to be aware of if you plan on driving in this province. I will outline them here for your convenience.

The eighth-of-a-second rule.

In most places this is known as the Two-Second Rule. Here's the way it works.
Watch the car in front of you.  When that car passes a pole or mark on the road, start counting "one one-thousand, two one-thousand."  If you pass by the mark before you finish counting to two, you're following too close. In Ontario, it's an eighth of a second. Not two seconds. Two seconds is too long. How can you expect everyone to fit on the roads if they all follow the two-second rule?

Also note that in most places the number of seconds increases with the size of the following vehicle. If you're driving a school bus, you should probably be counting to 4 because your brakes will take longer to stop your bus than the Honda Civic you're following. In Ontario, it's the opposite. The bigger and heavier your vehicle, the closer you must follow.

Signaling

Anyone caught using their signal lights to show intention of changing lanes, or turning onto another street, driveway, etc. shall be sentenced to life in a maximum security prison with no chance of parole. Ever. - Ontario Highway Traffic Act.

They've attached the hefty penalty because they're so serious about this. They do not want people showing intention of turning by use of signal lights. 98% of Ontarian drivers obey this law without fail.

However, signaling you're going to turn, then not turning - even though you're in the turning lane - is quite fine. Leaving your signal light on while driving down the highway while never changing lanes is also fine.

Pullling Out Into Traffic:

It is advisable to look both ways before pulling out into traffic from a perpendicular street or driveway, but please ignore how fast any oncoming vehicles are going.

Merging:

When two lanes become one, and traffic must merge, all cars must do as much as possible to prevent the merging to look like a giant zipper from the sky. If you're in the lane that's ending, you must drive as fast as you can to force your way into the furthest forward, however inconvenient to other drivers, giving up as many open spaces as possible. You were probably taught in school never to cut in line. That applies to the cafeteria; not roads.

The following rules apply specifically to Ottawa:

Red Lights

In most places red traffic lights mean stop! In Ottawa, they're just suggesting you might want to stop. If you feel like it. Otherwise, just go right through the intersection at any speed you feel is appropriate - as long as it's at least 90 km/h.  Besides, the Yellow Lights are mere flashes in Ottawa.

Lane Choice on the Queensway

Most highways operate in the following manner: The far right lane is the slowest. The far left lane is the fastest. Traffic moves faster as the lane moves farther left. If the posted speed limit is 100 km/h, people in the far right lane might go 100 km/h on an ideal day.  If people want to go faster, they use the left lane(s) to pass.

This is how the Queensway operates: The posted speed limit is - oh never mind. It doesn't matter. Feel free to do anything between 50 and 180 km/h. Don't worry about being in the wrong lane for your speed. There is no wrong lane. However, if you find another vehicle going the same speed as you, it is an offence punishable by death to occupy the same lane. You have to adjust your speed until you're right beside the other vehicle, then resume your original speed. This prevents anyone from passing you.

Also, you are required by law to change your speed by at least 20 km/h at every exit. It doesn't matter if you speed up or slow down - as long as you're within the 50 -180 km/h buffer.

Also, don't let the weather interfere with your driving habits. If you want to go 180 km/h on a bright sunny day in July, then you must also go 180 km/h during an ice storm in January. It's the law. By the same token, if you'd do 50 km/h during an ice storm, then you must also do 50 km/h on a clear and sunny day.

The following pertain to Embrun:

Posted Speed Limits:

The posted speed limits around Embrun are in French. While the numbers look the same as English numbers, their meanings are quite different.

Between the 417 and the town of Embrun, the posted speed limit looks like 80 km/h to an anglophone like myself. But, as I have found out, when you do the conversion to English numbers, it's actually 120 km/h. If you do 80 km/h, you will be passed as though you're standing still.

But once you get into Embrun, it works the other way. The posted speed limit is 50 km/h. Or at least that's what it looks like in English. But once you translate it into the native French, it's actually more like 30 km/h.  You can try to do 50 km/h, but you will be promptly slowed down to 30 km/h by the car in front of you.

Hey. I don't make the rules.  I just break 'em.

Mind Your Manners...and English

I find it interesting that some people are anal about English grammar and spelling.   See, English, unlike other languages like French or Korean, doesn't have a governing body defining what is right and what is wrong. Correct English is defined as being whatever is in popular usage. If you want to change an English spelling or rule, just get the masses to do it your way instead of the "right" way.

Some people say Dictionaries define what is correct. This isn't true. Dictionaries are in a constant game of catch-up.

I once blogged about how the meanings of words change.

A few case-in-points:

1. The Merriam-Webster Word of the Year for 2007 was "w00t". (That's right. Those are zeros in there.)
2. Americans spell it "honor", "labor", "favorite". Canadians spell it "honour", "labour", and "favourite". Who's to say what's right? Awww heck, Americans call it "Zee" and Canadians call it "Zed". Again, who says what's right? The only way to say they're both right is to admit that there can be more than one right way to spell something. If that's the case, why kan't I invent mai own ways to spel things? I'm just creating my own version of proper Inglish.
3. How to you spell it? Shakespear? Shakespere? Shakespeer? Other? In fact, in his day, people took pride in spelling their names in as many different ways as possible.
4. @#$@&! is considered a swear word today by some (but not all). If you get a really old dictionary, it's in there as an actual word. Who decided it was a swear word? What authority do they have? And who gave that authority to them?

Consider this paradox. If someone uses English that's considered to be improper today, they would be considered to have improper English. They would be wrong. But, if their "mistake" catches on, then they will retroactively become right.  They will be seen as a pioneer.  Shakespere invented many words, and prolly broke some rules too.

This does raise some interesting questions, like:

1. A lot of people use the word "literally" when they mean "figuratively." For example: "We were so late for our connecting flight, we literally flew through the airport terminal." They would have had to be superman. They mean "...we figuratively flew through the airport terminal" or "...we literally ran as fast as we could....". Nearly everyone makes this mistake. The question is "How long do words have to be confused with each other before they 'officially' take on the meaning of other word?"  In other words, when will "figuratively" literally mean "literally"?
2. A lot of people don't know when to use "me" and "I" "properly". Here's the "rule": "I" is subjective, and "me" is objective. I think the way most people think of it is that "I" comes at the beginning of the sentence, or the end of a list of people. Otherwise, use "me." The question is: When will using "I" in the objective be considered "proper"?  Consider the phrase "It is I!"  It's considered proper, but how?

There is one other similar arena: manners. The primary reason behind manners is making people around you not feel uncomfortable. Passing smelly gas makes me feel less comfortable. Whether you stick your pinky finger out whilst drinking tea or not does nothing for my comfort level.

I had a landlord that taught me all sorts of manners, like tilting a bowl of soup away from you when you're getting towards the last bit of soup. He wanted to impress on me how my table manners would be the sole factor in how people thought of me. No matter how many orphanages I built and ran, no matter how many homeless people I fed, or illiterates I taught to read, if I picked up my peas with the top side of my fork, I'd always be seen as a little kid in an adult's body.

Like English rules, I find something odd about my attitude towards manners: If I see someone breaking a rule I know about, I think "What an oaf! Don't they know?!" But when I hear a rule that's new to me, I think "What?! You've got to be kidding! That's a rule?! Who came up with that, and on whose authority?  That's so....so....so arbitrary!"

My favourite case-in-point is proper spaghetti-eating procedure. Do you use use a spoon or not? Here are some resources that say you don't use a spoon:

• Reuters
• Anna Maria Volpi - A Passion For Cooking
• eHow
• Dr. Dave and Dr. Dee

And here are some that say you do:

• Yahoo Answers
• My dad.
• That old Italian man I saw eating spaghetti in an Italian restaurant in Sault Ste. Marie.

And this Life in Italy forum has references to both.

So, who's right? Or, like the English language, is "right" a moving target?  Who cares?  Mostly the people who know the rules.  I think that most people who don't know the rules, or even that the rules exist, tend not to care very much....until they know the rules.  Then some care.

If you feel compelled to leave a comment to set me straight on something in this post, feel free, but please state on who's or what authority you speak, and where they got their authority.

The Decline of Tim Hortons

Last weekend, Pastor Jack and I went to the local Tim Hortons in Embrun. They had just finished renovations. There was a whole new look and feel. For the most part it was good. But one thing was different that I didn't like: The sandwich bar was at the back, facing the back wall. It used to be off to the side, facing the customers. Now, the poor sandwich lady had to shout to one end of the store asking Jack about his bagel, then the other end to shout something to me about my sandwich.

I have watched Tim Hortons go from a really nice place to go for a snack and hang-out to a place I don't want to go to at all. It's time I blogged about it.

When I was in high school I used to go to Timmies all the time with friends. I'd get a hot chocolate and two oatmeal-raisin cookies. The hot chocolate was smooth and delicious. The cookies were big and soft. Over time the cookies got smaller and harder. They were no longer appetizing.

This was long before their switch to "Always Fresh" where they stopped baking the products at the local Tim Hortons' and started baking at a central location, freezing the product, and shipping it out to the individual stores.  I know a lot of people were disappointed with this change.  They felt the quality of the donuts, muffins, etc. really went downhill.

Then they got new hot chocolate machines. They used to have a dedicated hot chocolate machine. Then they got machines that would dispense hot chocolate and "cappuccinos". I suspect they got a new hot chocolate formula at this time too. The quality of the drink went down the drain. I switched from hot chocolate to tea.

The nice things about tea is that I can control how long the tea has been steeping in the cup, and it's one price no matter what size you get. I like weak tea. I like the fact I can take the bag out of the cup when I want.

Then they changed that! They introduced steeped tea. I got it once. Once was enough. I couldn't finish the stuff. I had to pour it out. Oh well, I usually got Earl Grey tea anyway.  Their Ear Grey tea isn't steeped.  It only comes in individual bags.

Then I went in one day ready to beat the system by getting a large Earl Grey tea. I could let it steep for as little, or long, as I wanted. Then I was charged extra for the large! A large tea is not any more product than a small. It's one tea bag! The only difference is the size of the cup and the amount of water! This was the last straw.  No more Tim Hortons for me!  Now I only go to Tim Hortons as a last resort. Unfortunately, in Embrun there really isn't much else. If I'm willing to drive to Vars I'll go to the Country Style by the exit. (It turns out Country Style coffee is way better than Tim Hortons coffee.)

Now, they've changed the location of the sandwich bar. Jack likes to get a bagel with butter. They usually put too much butter on his bagel for his taste, so he likes to tell them to go easy on the butter. Now that they're way over behind the cash, with their back to him, it's a lot harder to ask for that. Interaction with your sandwich artist is important. They have taken that away from us.

Another thing, which may be only at the Embrun Timmies, is they no longer have napkins on the tables. That is so annoying! You're comfortably sitting down, you get some schmultz on your hands, and you have to get up, and go over to the busy counter to look for a napkin.

To recap, the ways Tim Hortons has gone downhill over the last several years are as follows:

1. The Hot Chocolate quality;
2. The quality of the cookies;
3. The "Always Fresh"way of providing baked goods;
4. Steeped Tea;
5. Greedy tea pricing schemes;
6. Relocation of the Sandwich Bar; and
7. No more napkins on the tables.

It hasn't been all bad. In that time, Tim Hortons has introduced cappuccinos, Bagels, Sandwiches, Soups, Chilli, and made all restaurants non-smoking.

All these complaints. Tim Hortons will never listen to me. Now, if only I had a friend who worked for Tim Hortons head office.....

Hands-Free Phone Law in Ontario

If you were driving down the road, talking on your cell phone and there was a clown on a unicycle, do you think you'd see him? Would it make a difference if you used a hands-free phone?

Probably not, according to today's Article.

The reason is obvious to those who know anything about attention. You can only really pay attention to one thing at a time. We multitask the way a computer does, but we're not nearly as good at switching from one process to another. The problem is not that you're holding something in your hand. The problem is attention.

If you think the problem is holding something in your hand, try this. The next time you're driving, try holding something in your hand. Heck! Try holding your phone in your hand without using it to talk. There shouldn't be significant degradation in your driving skills. (This may be hard for you to measure. Most people don't notice the degradation in their driving skills when talking on the phone, fiddling with the radio, or polishing off a 2-4.) In fact, if you have an automatic transmission in your car, you can regularly drive with one hand.

Furthermore, if driving with only one hand was as unsafe as driving drunk, then everyone who's either missing an arm or hand shouldn't be allowed to have a drivers licence.  And anyone with an unusable hand, due to injury or something, should lose their licence until they recover.

I guess the biggest problem would be for people who talk with their hands.  If they're holding their phone with one hand, and gesturing with the other, then they're not steering their car.

So, if the problem isn't having something in your hand, but attention, then why are we passing laws that say "It's okay to be distracted when you drive, as long as you're not distracted while holding something in one hand."?

Someone Stole My Idea!

It seems someone has stolen my Coffee Cup Art" idea!

Actually, check it out. This guy is pretty good. We share a medium, but our style is completely different.

I Need To Cool Off

You know what grinds my gears? Apartments in this city (Ottawa) advertise "All inclusive". Then they say "$x/month for Air Conditioning". Well, then it's not "all inclusive" is it?

Charging extra for Air Conditioning is such a sham. What's next? Charging for using the stove?

I understand that air conditioners use a lot of power, but they're assuming that you're going to be using it a lot. How do they know how much you're going to use? They charge a flat rate.

This summer has been unseasonably cold. If the first half of this month continues, it will be the coldest July on record. Last week I heard, the average temperature was between 17 and 18 degrees. So the people who have air conditioning units probably aren't using them very much at all this summer. Yet, they're paying for them the same as though it was going up to 35 degrees everyday.

Consider this scenario: I live in an apartment with "all-inclusive" rent and being charged extra for my air conditioner. My next door neighbour moved in at the same time as me, so he pays the same rent. He also has an air conditioner, and he pays the same flat rate for it.

I don't have a television set. I have a laptop computer. I'm a vegetarian so I don't do a lot of cooking. I spend most of my day at work, and leave all my lights off at home. I spend the weekends out with friends. I enjoy the heat of summer, and set my air conditioner to keep the apartment at 25 degrees.

My neighbour has a plasma TV, which uses a lot of power. He has several computers he uses for gaming - a high power consuming activity, relatively speaking. He works from home, so he runs his lights, computer, etc. all the time. He loves foods of all kinds and cooks almost everyday. He enjoys his cool air, and he sets his air conditioner at 18 degrees. His social life exists in cyberspace, so he doesn't go out much. He's at home a lot.

Who uses more power? My neighbour. By a long shot. But we both pay the same amount.

Let's consider a second scenario. This scenario is almost exactly like the first, except my neighbour enjoys the heat and I don't. He doesn't even have an air conditioner. I do. I keep mine at 25 degrees. I run mine only at night.

Who uses more power overall? I'm not 100% certain, but I still think my neighbour does. Who's paying more? Me. How is that fair?! How is that right?!

Most places seem to charge a monthly fee of $10 for the air conditioner. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that that's what it costs to run one on average: $10 per month.

When I lived in an all-inclusive apartment in Sault Ste. Marie, I got a notice saying that the management would only be paying $40 per month for electricity. Any electricity beyond that would have to be covered by the tenant.

I asked my landlord how close I was to the $40. He said "pffft! You're nowhere near that! You're at, like, $12 per month."

So, assuming a $10 per month cost of running an air conditioner, if I had installed one, my power usage would have have been $22 per month. About half of my monthly allotment. If they had that air conditioner fee, then I would have been paying an extra $10, with an unused portion of my electricity bill of $28 per month. What a rip!

Of course, my whole rant depends on my assumption that apartment buildings are charging for air conditioning what it actually costs, and not just charging an extra fee that barely covers the cost of air conditioning.

Can anybody here tell me how much it actually costs to cool a one bedroom apartment in the Ottawa area?

Phone Scam

Today I want to talk about two phone scams. The first one is where someone calls you, lets the phone ring a couple of time, and hangs up. You see the number on the call-display. Even though you don't recognize the number, you decided to call it back. The number turns out to be an adult entertainment line in a foreign land.

If you call a number back, without knowing who it is, just because it shows up on your call-display, you deserve the $1000 phone bill that goes with it.

The second phone scam is a much more serious and widespread one; one which you may have already fallen victim to. I know I have. It's called "Paying for Text Messaging."

I remember once upon a time, texting was free. The technology was already built into the phone system. It seems the phone companies noticed that people were texting and they decided to make a quick buck out of it.

I'm with Bell Mobility. They charge me $3.00/month for unlimited incoming text messages, and 30 outgoing messages. Any outgoing messages beyond the 30 is 15 cents per message.

How much does it cost the phone company?

According to this article, "Srinivasan Keshav, Canada Research Chair in tetherless computing at the University of Waterloo, told lawmakers probing text messaging rates and the state of competition in the wireless telecommunications industry that the maximum cost of a single text message "very unlikely" exceeds 0.3 cents."

The author of this article, calculates how much texting costs compared to talking on his cell phone, assuming data transfer costs the same for each method. The talk-plan he assumes ($40 per month for 400 minutes) costs about $1.75 per Megabyte. Texting, at 15 cents per text works out to $786.43 per Megabyte. If texting were charged at the same rate as talking, it would be 0.33 cents per message, which is about what Srinivasan Keshav calculates.

What can you do about it? All I can think of is to get a Skype account, or some other Voice Over IP system and start making phone calls that way. If enough people do this, then the phone system as we know it will die.

My answer requires Net Neutrality to be in place. Otherwise, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will just charge for emails and instant messages. They might do that anyway, so it's important that we get Net Neutrality laws in place to prevent that sort of behaviour.

I'm An Artist Too (109)

This is not an April Fool's Day joke. Shortly after Christmas I noticed my coffee cups were missing from my desk. I hoped someone was pranking me. No one has fessed up. Whoever took them left behind all my to-go containers. I don't think they, whoever it was, were cleaning. They left behind obvious garbage, like crinkled napkins, that are sitting right on my desk. I can't be 100% sure, but I think my cups were in my cabinet. Someone would have had to go in there and take them.

It really ticks me off because those cups really aren't worth anything to anyone except me. There are three explanations I can think of:

1. We have a kleptomaniac around here who's smart enough to stick with stealing low-cost items. If you steal a computer, someone will come after you. Steal a used coffee cup, no one is going to care.
2. I have an enemy in the office, and they took them just to get at me. I have no idea who this might be. I thought I got along with everyone here.
3. Someone fancies themselves an art-critic with the authority to throw out any art he deems unworthy of display....even if it's display case is a closed cabinet.

I lean toward theory 1. Other data seems to support this theory.

I figure I lost about 30 to 40 cups. The following piece (which now sits on my shelf above my monitor) is my "artists" rendition of what I think happened; the "crime-scene" if you will. (Notice the cups saying "Don't take me, bro!")

One Strike and We're Out! - Part 3

I don't like to call anyone an idiot. This will be one of the hardest posts I've ever written.

If you've been keeping up with the OC Transpo stike, you'll remember about a couple of weeks ago Rona Ambrose, Minister of Labour, refused to legislate the bus drivers back to work. She basically said "Solve your own problems. That's what collective bargaining is for."

Then, last week I read Today's Article which states that Rona Ambrose is prepared to introduce back-to-work legislation.

Oh great! Another flip-flopping politician! That's just what we need. *groan*

It turns out she didn't even have to do that. The kids agreed to take everything to binding arbitration with no preconditions. Now 70% of service will be restored on Saturday, February 7. 100% of service won't be restored until April 6.

A few things occur to me about all this:

• If they can get 70% service up and running in a week, why will it take an additional 2 months for the remaining 30%?
  I hope that they're giving a worst-case scenario. We've already seen the restoration moved up once.



• André Cornellier is a high-functioning illiterate and needs to be replace as soon as possible. The city continued to make modified counter-offers, which he rejected as being "more of the same." Then, when those counter-offers got into the papers, we could see that it wasn't "more of the same." They city was offering the raises that the union was asking for. In fact, at one point the city said to the union "We're not married to our idea of scheduling. If you can come up with a solution that's safe, and saves money, we're all ears." And what did the union offer? Nothing new, just more of the same. (It's quite possible that I'm wrong about this. If I am, it's the fault of Cornellier not communicating it to me, the public.)



• A public representative/spokesperson, such as André Cornellier, really needs to be a good public speaker. As can be seen in this article he says "Well, I was not elected by my membership to be a public speaker." He's got that right! The union needs to elect someone who will fight for them, and be a good public speaker.
  
  The union didn't just lose the media war. They got pwned! They got slaughtered!
  
  Winning the media was is important. If the union had won the media war, the people would have said to the politicians "End this now, or you lose my vote, and by extension your job." As it was, the city won the war. People were saying to the city "This has been a terrible inconvenience for me, but don't give into their demands!" In other words "You're giving me the shaft, but you're not going to lose my vote over it." What an enviable position for a politician!
  
  In order to win this media war, all André Cornellier would have had to do is get the people to side against policiticans. How hard can that be? Especially when the main politician is Larry O'Brien! People, by default, take sides against politicians. People aren't necessarily big fans of unions either. If André Cornellier didn't make the following two mistakes he could have won the media war, thus getting the public on his side:
  
  1. Show more sympathy to those affected by the strike.
  
  
  2. Communicate to the public what the strike was all about so that they could understand.
  
  
  Instead, he:
  
  1. Showed no sympathy to the public. He appeared to only care about the striking workers. (Whether this is true or not is debatable, but it's appearance that matters in a media war.)
  
  
  2. It took about a month before I started reading in the papers what the union was asking for. To this date, I still hear people talking about the strike, completely misunderstanding the issues. He let us continue on in our ignorance. Forcing workers to spread their working day over 14 hours is ridiculous. Most people understand that. They were in a very sympathetic position. I think communication, or lack thereof, was the culprit.


• Cornellier said "It is a constitutional right to strike, but the government doesn't take it as a right when they legislate — it's sad."
  
  No, André, the government refused to interfere when they were asked for the legislation because "that's what collective bargaining is for".
  
  Then they were going to legislate because they saw that collective bargaining wasn't getting anywhere. After 7 weeks, the union hadn't made any concessions. The strike wasn't any closer to being resolved than it was on the first day. They did what they had to do.

My message to the members of ATU Local 279: When the opportunity to vote in a new Local president, you need to vote someone else in. Get André Cornellier out. He's just hurting you. You need someone who will, not only fight for you, but will be a good communicator, a good public speaker; someone who will get the public on your side.

BTW: Welcome back. It will good to see you again.

I Thought of it First

How do you feel when you do some work and later find someone else did the same thing?

Long time readers will remember in July of 2008 I published a Coffee Cup Art entitled "Don't Maze Me, Bro!" This was the piece:



I noticed that "don't maze me bro" has become a popular search term leading to this blog. So I Googled it. And look what I found:



This can be found here:
http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=28677.

So, now whats next? Do I email this guy? Does my lawyer email this guy? I published mine in July or 2008. He published his in December, 2008. So I got to it first.

What do you think? Leave a comment with your suggestion/vote.

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UPDATE: And now I find this:

Now We Only Have One National Anthem

According to Today's Article the CBC is dropping the Hockey Night In Canada theme song they've had for 30 years. This has many Hockey fans dismayed. (Check out the number of comments at the bottom of the article!) Heck! I'm not even a hockey fan - I don't even know how many innings are in a game of hockey - and I'm dismayed!

That theme song, aside from being my cell-phone ring-tone for about 3 years, is considered Canada's unofficial national anthem. They're getting rid of our unofficial national anthem! I'm sure more people know the words to that song than the official anthem.

I'd wager that CBC is doing this to generate outcry from the people. The CBC will eventually give in. Then they'll keep using the theme. That way, we'll appreciate it more. We'll thank the CBC the same way you thank the police officer for knocking your speeding ticket down by 10 km/h.

Although, it kinda makes sense if you think about it. We're loosing our unofficial national anthem, which is associated with one of our two national sports - hockey. At the same time, we're loosing our hockey teams (and players) to the states.

Now that I've gotten an emotional reaction out of you, and caused you to make up your mind that the people running the CBC are a bunch of moonshine-swilling baboons, I'll confuse you with some facts.

The company that licenses that theme to the CBC is suing the CBC for $ 2.5 million for using the song too often. For the $500 per game fee the CBC pays, they're allowed to play it only during hockey games shown within Canada. They allege the CBC has been using it for games shown outside of Canada, and in other programming. Perhaps this has something to do with the CBC ditching our secondary national anthem?

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UPDATE: You may resume think of the CBC management as a bunch of moonshine-swilling baboons. They let the anthem get away. CTV bought the rights to the music. CTV owns TSN.

Now that we can continue to hear the music, I suspect no one will boycott the CBC. We, the people, have been appeased. Besides, people are way to obsessed with hockey. The devotion of the fans has lead to a hockey season of, what feels like, 14 months every year. And that's before the play-offs. The market exists to allow that to happen. With that market, no theme song is going to stop people from watching.

Electronic Drums Suck!

When I was nine years old I learned to play the drums. I played drums until I graduated from high school and moved away. After that, I didn't play much. I did learn to play the guitar since then.

In my final year in the Sault something was awoken in me. I wanted to play drums again. My church in Ottawa had drums. Soon I would be there, hopefully playing them.

When I got to Ottawa I noticed the nice set of drums was replaced by a set of electronic drums. I played them a few times and decided I would stick to the guitar. That which had awoken in me, the deep desire to drum, had to be put on hold. Electronic drums didn't help fill the desire. It made the desire stronger. Now when I hear acoustic drums, they sound so much better than they did before. I appreciate them more now than I have before. And it makes me wish even more that we had them at our church.

This year our youth pastor has decided to have a youth-oriented service called "1Worship" at our church. I was asked to play the drums. I readily accepted on the condition they provide me with a set of drums.

"We have drums."

"No you don't. You have a drum machine that's too stupid to be able to play a beat on it's own. It needs to be told every time it's supposed to make a sound. Get me real drums and just try and keep me off of them."

Eventually I went to a 1Worship service. It actually hurt more to hear the band without a drummer than it hurt to play the "drums." So I temporarily volunteered.

Every time I hit the "drums" my hatred of them grows stronger. The sound guy loves them because he can turn down the volume.

Here are some pros and cons of having electric drums instead of acoustics.

Reasons why acoustics are better:

• Deeper, richer sounds. Especially in the toms.
• Different sticks sound different. Brushes, hot-rods, thin sticks, thick sticks, mallets, etc. all have a different sound on acoustics. To electrics, a stick is a stick is a stick. Brushes are useless.
• Easier to set up - no electronic gadgets to set up.
  
• Better feel when playing.
• You can create more sounds much more easily.
• You can actually do cymbal rolls.
• You can do actual drum rolls.
• You don't actually need to have the sound guy there for a practice.
• Little technical expertise is needed to set them up or play them.
• Much much cheaper. A bottom-of-the-line electronic kit is priced about the same as a mid-level to top-level acoustic kit.
• If a wire is damaged on a set of electronic drums, you loose the whole drum or cymbal. This is not an issue with acoustic drums.
  
• How you play acoustic drums is how you sound. On our electric "drums" when you hit a crash cymbal for a loud crash-cymbal sound, the sound is there for about a 10th of a second, then it cuts out. How lame is that? It ruins the whole feel of the song. Mind you, that may just be a flaw of our particular set.
  

Advantages of electronic "drums":

• The sound guy can turn down the volume on the drums without having to tell you to play quieter.

Yes, I admit it. Those lists may be a bit biased.

I'm An Artist Too (53)

There will be no coffee cup art this week because somebody can't appreciate real art when they see it.

Whenever I get a styrofoam container I draw on it. I leave it on my desk at work. After I've accumulated enough I take pictures and upload them to my blog to show you on Wednesday's Coffee Cup Art series.

Since I moved to my new job I don't have access to as many places that give out blank styrofoam containers like I did at my old job. I have to go back to my old workplace to get some. I started doing just that. I have to pass my old work place on the way to my new work place. If I pass by my old work place early enough I stop in for breakfast, which leaves with a coffee cup to draw on.

So I started collecting again. I had drawn a pirate on Talk Like A Pirate Day on September 19. I came into work yesterday morning and noticed that my coffee cups were gone! I'm assuming that the cleaning staff threw them out.

This is my message to the person who threw out my coffee cups:
What? You don't know art when you see it? Huh? I don't go into your house and throw your paintings away.

Philistine.

The Woes of Customer Service

"There are two rules of management: 1. The customer is always right. 2. They must be punished for their arrogance." -Dogbert's rules of management.

Many countries have laws that require its citizens to do some military service. Canada is not one of those countries. Nor should it be, in my opinion. Canada is not a militaristic country. However, it is a consumeristic country.

Instead of requiring every able-bodied Canadian to do military service, I think Canada should require every one of its citizens do several months of customer service. This could be working at a fast food restaurant, store clerk, gas station jockey, or any minimum wage job that requires you deal with the general public.

Anyone who has worked in that sort of job knows what customers can be like. Working in that job shows you how to be a good customer. Being a good customer means getting good service. Good service may be company policy, but the customer service agents are people too. The better you treat them, the better they treat you. Trust me; a smile, a "please" and a "thank you" go a long way. Longer than a good tip.

You may be a bad customer and not know it.

I worked at a Tim Horton's in an Esso gas station for a while. It was a small Tim Horton's. I worked alone. My only human interaction most days was with customers.

Tim Horton's has a policy of throwing out old coffee. This way the coffee is always fresh. Once a pot brews we look at a clock, add 20 minutes, and write that time on the pot with an easily erasable pencil. If it's really busy, we don't mark the pots because no pot will last 20 minutes. Once a pot has been sitting for 20 minutes it's poured down the sink.

I always kept at least 2 pots on the go. One pot had coffee that was less than 10 minutes old - the fresh pot. The other had coffee that was at least 10 minutes old - the old pot.

I quit that job years ago to return to college. But if I ever take that job again for extra cash, or whatever reason, and you come in and see me behind the counter here are some ways to get coffee from the old pot:

1. Ask for the freshest coffee - this guarantees you the oldest coffee I have.
   
   Yeah, I'm a jerk. But so are you. Enjoy your "fresh" coffee.
2. Ask for coffee from the oldest pot. - I did have a customer that did this. She wanted decaf as old and strong as I could make it. I would stop brewing new decaf at least an hour before she normally would come in. She would greet me with a smile that would brighten the day. She would ask how old my decaf was. "Ummm...over an hour old."
   "Good. The older, the better. Can I have a large single-single decaf, please?"
   "Why, certainly. That will be $1.35, please."
   "Here you go," she'd say as she gave me a Toonie. "Keep the change, and have a good day."
   "Thank you very much! Have a good day!"
   
   My best customer. I'd personally remove the caffeine molecules with a pair of tweezers for her if she asked.
   
   Bottom line: If you want old coffee, ask. You just might get it.
3. Greet me by saying "Hi. How are you?" then interrupt me when I begin to say "Not bad, how about you?" - If you don't want an answer DON'T ASK A @#$@n' QUESTION! Just say "Hi."
   
   Yeah, I'm a jerk. But so are you.
4. If you buy something from me just to make change, don't be surprised to receive $18.50 in nickels and dimes. - I'm there to serve coffee, not make change.
   
   Yeah, I'm a jerk. But so are you. Enjoy your 20 lbs of coinage. I hope you have a good belt to hold your trousers up with that added weight.
5. Don't use the manners your mother taught you, like "Please" and "Thank you." - I'll treat you like a human when you treat me like one.
   
   Yeah, I'm a jerk. But so are you.
6. Assume that because you don't see anyone else in line, there isn't anyone else in line. - Sometimes I have someone at the drive-thru that you can't see. Sometimes they hum and haw and it looks like I'm just ignoring you. I'm not. You're second in line. Wait your turn.
   
   Sometimes people come in, order a number of coffees, then go to the washroom while I make the drinks. Then you walk in and think you're the first one in line. You're not.
   
   You're not a jerk this time. Your confusion is understandable. Unless you blow up at me. Then you're a jerk.
   
7. Demand a coffee instead of asking for one. - I'm not your slave-boy. You depend on me for good service. Treat me like a human. When you do that, I'll return the favour.
   
   Yeah, I'm a jerk. But so are you. Enjoy your "fresh" coffee.
   
8. Tell me you're in a hurry, then order something that takes a while to make, like an Iced Cap, or a toasted begal with cream cheese. Then leave before its prepared. Then come back 20 minutes later wondering where it is. - When you demand I move faster you will fall to the bottom of my priority list and get served last. Telling me to go faster has the same effect as tailgating me when driving. I don't move faster. I slow down. When you leave, I'll eat your begal and drink your Iced Cap. Mmmmm. Yummy!
   
   Yeah, I'm a jerk. But so are you.
9. Pay for your order with the money from my tip tray. - Thief.
10. Remove the lid to your tea, take a sip, don't completely replace the cover leaving an opening so some hot tea can fall onto my hand - thus scalding me - in order to tell me it's too hot. - This won't get you old coffee. But you're still a jerk. I'm suing you.
    
    Tea is hot. So is coffee without cream or milk. In my day you could ask for ice with your tea. I found two ice cubes would quickly cool the tea down to a drinkable temperature. I don't know if you can still do this. This is part of the demise of Tim Horton's, which I will likely blog about in the future. I now go toCountry Style for my coffee.

</rant>

All of the above are from actual incidences. There was no exaggeration. Apparently customer service doesn't bring out the best in me. I guess it's a good thing I work with computers nowadays.

Maybe I should join a Facebook group, as talked about in today's article.

(Yeah. I know today's post didn't have a lot to do with today's article, but I wanted to rant. Feel free to leave your customer-related rants as comments.)

My Car, My Hassles (Part 5)

I think it's time for an update on my car situation. For those of you new to this blog, you might want to read my previous four posts on my car-buying adventures, starting with Post 1.

Let's see, where were we. My car is in Ontario. It's been registered in Ontario. I have paid the Ontario provincial tax as well as the Nova Scotian provincial tasks.

Edgar is still dead.

When I left you in Part 4 I had sent in a form to the CRA to get my Nova Scotian provincial tax money back. The only thing the form requested from me was that I fill in the form, and send the original bill of sale with the form. I did that.

I sent the form to the CRA on May 4.

Four months later on August 16 I received a letter from the CRA entitled "Notice of (Re)Assessment GST/HST Rebate Application". They rejected my application for a rebate because I did not send in proof that the vehicle has been moved from Nova Scotia to Ontario.

It makes sense that they would want to see proof of movement. But, as the Bible says, "Ask and ye shall receive." (Matthew 7:7). But the CRA didn't ask. Until now. So I had to resubmit my rebate application, this time with proof that I registered the car in Ontario.

Oy.

On December 4 I received a letter from the CRA saying "We got your request for a (re)assessment, and we are looking at it. We will send you the results in another letter."

It seems to me that it would save time, and money to skip that step, and just send me the results. But, that's just me.

I'm still awaiting the results. I'll let you know what happens next.

UPDATE:
On December 14, over 8 months since this whole fiasco began, I received a cheque from CRA to reimburse my Nova Scotian tax.

That closes this story. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and way more than I enjoyed living it. The morale of the story: Don't buy a car in a province other than the one in which you live.