Author: Kirk

Wisdom Comes With Age, They Say

Back in the 90s I listened to a band called Pure, and in my recent attempts to digitize my collection (I’m at the S’s now, hang in there contest entrants!) I have revisited their album entitled Generation 6 Pack.

A witty enough title – I appreciate it more today than I did back then.

Therein lies a song called Denial, that, frankly, nailed a feeling back then.  A general growing mistrust of technology and popular culture (yes I know, a rare indie band theme).  Listening to it riding through Richmond’s Nature Park this morning caused me to pause: those boys had hit it on the head and, dammit, they were still right!

A decade later and could these words not be written today?

One day I went out walking
To find a butterfly
Screaming in an empty room
A man shot the sky
My heart beating faster
I think I’ll go read my book
The faster we go, the less we know
A book sure sounds good
Denial
Denial
Seems like the faster we go
The less we see
The less that we know
Denial
Passing by the drugstore
I see this girl inside
Flippin’ through a magazine
To see how she should be
I stare a little closer
No one seems to mind
That sad-happy look she’s giving up for a while
Denial
Denial
Seems like the faster we go
The less we see
The less that we know
Talk about denial
Seems like the bigger the lie
The more you try
And the less you ask why
Denial
Heading down the seawall
Going back to my home
I see a friend who’s always hurtin’
We talk for a while
Smiles are always nervous
Chances are that we’ll laugh
Spill our guts, hurry up
Time’s running fast
Denial

Now were they just precient, or has the world not really changed in a decade.  We only get 10 of these thing, max, and have we really used this one to its fullest potential?

Oh, one more thing.  This is Bike To Work Week in Vancouver.  if you’re local, consider trying it out.

Baby Name Time – Part Deux

Yes indeed, we’re making a list and checking it twice.  I wrote previously about a neat interface on the Internet for finding name frequency data at a site called the NameVoyager, and I still value the site’s data.  But another site has taken things a step further, and not only provided frequency data but also recommendations.  You can pick a few seed names and see what else comes up.  It is called Nymbler (thanks for the tip Darcy!)

Want to see our short list?  Yeah, me too.  We’ve narrowed each sex down to 20 or so names that we don’t dislike.  Is our future child’s name on the list?  Hard to say.  There are a few I really like but Alisa’s nose wrinkles every time I mention them.  So those don’t look so viable, if you catch my drift.

Ah, this is the fun part!  It is merely deciding the very first and strongest impression your child will make on people, even in their physical absence.  No problem.

An Online Shopping Lesson Learned

So back in early fall I was looking for a nice surprise gift for Alisa’s graduation. I knew she wanted a subscription to Us Magazine, so I made a quick little joke about her being able to rot her highly educated brain now that she had graduated. I made a mistake though, I subscribed using an online magazine vendor: MagazineCity. I shopped around a little and found 3 online sites that offered Us, and chose it because it was cheapest, and had no negative reviews that I could fine.

Well hello Google, come index this page, because this is one heck of a negative review!

I was told to expect a delay of 5-6 weeks after paying them before seeing the first issue. There was administrative stuff I knew, and I was sure they were bulk subscribing to Us itself to get the lower rate and so had to wait until Us got its gears in motion.

In early January (5 weeks in) I decided to throw a quick question to their customer service contact just to make sure things were on track. I received an automated email back stating that because I was an international customer and it was a weekly magazine, I should expect a longer wait time as Us was slower in their international deliveries. About 6-8 weeks.

Ouch I thought, 2 months after paying them I could expect my first issue? Maybe saving money wasn’t such a good idea here, though the subscription cost was about half what Us itself wanted. So I decided to see what would happen. I did receive an actual human response to my inquiry a few weeks later (!) stating that my subscription had been submitted very soon after I placed the order, and that I simply had to wait. The customer service rep (Heather) said that if we didn’t see anything by the end of March that I should give their service number a call. “March!” I thought, why would it take that long. That’s just silly, but I kept the email just in case.

Continue reading An Online Shopping Lesson Learned

Putting It Succinctly

I love poetry for its ability to capture ideas, thoughts, and ramblings in simple, succinct texts. This minimalist approach to language can result in great thoughts all crammed in to short little quotes, like this one attributed to poet Edward Arlington Robinson:

The world is not a prison house, but a kind of kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”

Happy (Belated) 2nd Birthday Marley!

It’s a real shame – it really is.  My own daughter turned two on May 5th and I didn’t get a chance to blog about it.  What’s that?  Why didn’t I get that chance?  Well, it seems my cable Internet went and got broken on Sunday, the day of her party.

Several visits by the cable provider later and we’re back in action.

So here’s a belated wish going out to my lovely little girl.  I assure you pictures of the party and the ceremonial cake sacrifice will follow.

Oops, There’s Placenta In My Supplement?

The FDA issued a recall announcement a few days ago that caught my eye.  The primary eye catcher was this one:

Finally, the company is recalling Seng Jong Tzu Tong Tan, a product that contains human placenta. Human placenta may transmit disease and dietary supplements that contain it may not be lawfully marketed in the United States.

I can’t imagine a product designer saying anything like “I know!  Let’s put human placenta into the supplement!” but apparently it happens (or it did happen).  The next question is where are they getting human placentas from?  I trusted my hospital when it said it would be incinerated … so my question now is “Was it?”

Oh, and then my next question will be “What products with human placenta can be lawfully marketed in the United States?”

Song Chart Memes – Great Pop Culture Puzzles

I’ve just been introduced to an on-going meme on Flickr where people are creating graphical representations of song lyrics.  It sounds simple, but there seems to be a real art to getting it done correctly.  Here’s a link to the entire Flickr photostream if you’re bored.  Here are two favorites – can you guess the song names?

One Mind, One Body?

Try this, see how in sync your mind and body are.

  1. Sit on a chair and lift your right foot off the ground.  Start rotating it in clockwise circles
  2. While doing this, draw the number ‘6’ in the air with your right hand.

How’s the foot rotation doing – any turbulence?

A little research of the web tells me this isn’t a new trick – but it is new to me.  With a little concentration I seem to get better at it.  Maybe when I’m in a more relaxed state of mind I’ll have more success.

Bathroom Renovations – Up & Down

TheBside has been somewhat quiet lately, and for good reason. Alisa and I are still reeling from our recent splurge on bathroom renovations. Who knew that hiring contractors to do all the work would be so much … well … work?!

The renovation initially was simply replacing the old tile, changing out the hardware, etc. A typical renovation. However the two bathrooms in the house were going to be done at the same time, for cost saving reasons. So I came to know my work’s showers fairly well for 2 weeks. And yes, it took almost 2 weeks between the first demo day and our being able to shower. There’s the demo, there’s the mould discovery (yeah, that was fun), there’s the drywall/cement board hanging, then the mudding, the tiling, the grouting, the sealing, the painting. Man, if we could do all these things without drying time, it would have been half the time it was.

Oh yes, we found mould downstairs. Continue reading Bathroom Renovations – Up & Down