The Kid in the Stands - Proper Etiquette of Foul Balls

(Yeah, kid, I feel your pain every Monday morning)

Some of you may have heard of the raging controversy a few days ago. At a Texas Rangers baseball game against the Yankees, two couples were sitting next to each other in the stands. One of the couples had a three-year-old child with them, all ablaze in Texas Rangers gear.

A foul ball gets thrown into the stands by one of the players, and the guy from the childless couple ends up with it (there is some debate on whether he caught it or it fell to him after bouncing, but that's beside the point). Instead of giving the ball to the kid, Cameron, he gives it to the woman he's with, and they smile and pose for the camera. Meanwhile, the boy starts crying his head off.

Horrible behaviour? That's the general consensus out there in Internet-land, though there have been some new updates to the story since then that show them to not necessarily be the evil villains they're made out to be. Cameron's mother spoke out on the Today show, saying that they were a perfectly wonderful couple who spoke with Cameron a lot. They were getting married on Saturday (so I suppose that means yesterday?) and this was their first baseball game together. In fact, she says that they offered Cameron the ball and she said no, because he's at an age where he wants everything and they want him to learn that sometimes you don't get everything you want.

Yankees announcer Michael Kay apparently went off on them and their behaviour. "'Oh my God. They can’t give it to the kid? That’s awful,' he lamented, adding, 'They’re rubbing it in the kid’s face,' when the couple posed happily with the ball for a photo as Cameron looked on."

The story did have a bit of a happy ending, as the dugout got him another ball. The other couple, Sean Leonard and Shannon Moore, are pretty upset with the sensationalizing that went on around the whole event, especially Kay's comments.

So just what is proper etiquette for kids at sporting events like this? Do they always deserve everything that even comes near them?

Some of the commenters on some pages that had this story agree with Cameron's mom, that maybe kids do need to learn that they can't always get everything they want, and that this would be an important life lesson. Others are of the belief that you always should put the kids first.

Roberto Luongo, goalie for the Vancouver Canucks, always gives his stick to a kid near the front row of Canucks home games when he's named one of the Three Stars, but that's a bit different. It's obviously his intent to give it to a kid, so if some guy catches it instead, he should definitely give it to the kid.

But a random puck or a foul ball or whatever?

Richard Durrett has a good post on this at ESPN. There's also a lively debate in the comments section.

First of all, if a ball (or puck or whatever) is tossed into the stands, it's generally intended for a kid. Players usually don't just randomly toss balls into the crowd, and hey, the good PR of taking care of your kid fans is never a bad thing. So if you catch one of these, give it to the kid it was intended for.

If it's a foul ball or home run that gets hit your way? That's a bit dicier.

My feeling is that, most of the time, you give it to the kid. Do you remember when you were a kid and some adult, especially one you didn't even know, did something nice for you? That adult has created a happy memory that will last a lifetime. The warm glow of a kid's smile should be compensation enough for it.

But what if you have your own situation? Maybe you've got a sick kid at home that really wanted to be at this game but couldn't? You want to bring the ball back to him/her. Or, as with this couple, it's your first baseball game together. Wouldn't this ball make a great memento of this occasion?

If I were in this type of situation, I would try to flag down an usher or somebody official, explain the situation, and ask whether you can either get another ball or whether the kid you're not giving it to can get another ball.

Really, it's not worth the PR nightmare, though in an ideal world that wouldn't be a consideration. I'm getting sick of over-hyping media that go off half-cocked without even thinking about other considerations. Instead, they get instantly outraged and start criticizing without knowing all the facts. Kay should be ashamed of himself, but then again, he's only one of many. How many times have we seen videos like this?

It's in your best interests to just give the kid the damned ball.

The couple says that this incident, and Kay's comments, have caused them to get angry phone calls at their home.

No matter what really happened, that part is seriously uncool. I guess it's a product of the society we're living in right now, this media-saturated 24-hour news cycle where people fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.

If I were them, I wouldn't be expecting an apology any time soon.

So what are your thoughts on this? Should you put the kids first? Or is it ok to keep the ball as long as you didn't physically push the kid out of the way, or reach over his head, to snatch it out of his hands?

Women Gamers and the Abuse They Suffer

(Thanks to GamingsRapture)

(Some rude language follows, as I'm not going to censor it so that you can see what they really do put up with)

In Thursday's post on movie review misogyny, I mentioned the troubles that female gamers have as well. I don't game online that much, but when I do (mostly first-person shooters), I have noticed that most of the usernames on there are either obviously guys or they're ambiguous. I do sit up and take notice when there's an obviously female name on there, though.

This is not for the reasons you might expect.

You hear stories all the time of the abuse that women get when they play online. Rude come-ons ("Would you mind...showing me your tits?"). Insults because they just happen to be better at the game than the guy saying the insult. ("stfu you fat fucking texas slag, go lose some weight,get a job and make some real friends.")

Some of these are said on the mic you use to talk when you're online. Some of these are actually sent to the woman's inbox on Xbox Live or Playstation or on the PC. It's no wonder that in most of the games where I do notice a female gamertag, she doesn't say anything. It really opens you up to abuse when you do that. Some are dismissive of them as a 12-year-old boy (yes, some women's voices are high-pitched, which is amplified by the mic) and when it does come out that they're a woman, the comments are let loose.

I am lucky enough, probably because I don't play that much, that I can say I've never heard any of this in the games I have played. Then again, I have rarely heard the woman speak unless she's in with her husband/boyfriend and they're talking, so it's not surprising I haven't heard any of the abuse either.

It's sad to say that this has kept many women from actually participating in online gaming.

Others, however, fight to expose the misogyny and shame them into submission.

The two quotes I pulled above were taken from two wonderful sites run by confident female gamers who have some fun while they're exposing the idiocy of the "typical" male gamer (hopefully they're not *that* typical and it's just because there are so many of us out there that there's always going to be a sizable proportion of assholes).

The "show me your tits" comment was taken from a site called Not in the Kitchen Anymore run by Jenny Haniver. I just found this site today and it appears to be all her own stuff. She takes recordings of the stuff she hears and puts them on display for all to hear, with transcripts too for those who can't listen or don't want to. She sounds like an incredibly tough woman to put up with all of this, but sometimes it's best to laugh and mock than to get upset by it. All transcripts say "RMP" (Random Male Player) rather than calling out who it is.

The other comment with the helpful suggestion of going out and making some real friends comes from a site I discovered a few weeks ago (thanks to one of the best bloggers on Game Informer, Oni No Tenshi, for pointing this out to me in a wonderful article on trying to get your female significant other to game).

The site is called "Fat, Ugly, or Slutty" and the title is based on the typical insults that female gamers get. If you're a woman and you're a gamer, it's very likely you will be accused of being fat, being ugly (both because you obviously can't find a man...you're gaming, right?) or being a slut. That last one doesn't make any sense to me because, if you're truly a slut, why would you be wasting time with idiots online who you can't see, rather than going down to the bar and picking up guys there?

Logical thinking has never been the strong suit for these types of idiots.

Anyway, Fat, Ugly or Slutty is the brainchild of one "gtz", or Grace (gtz is her online handle). She and a small staff of supporters document the abuse women take online. Readers can submit what they have had to deal with, so it's not just a personal thing for these women. The examples shown on the site are from a lot of people. The site also doesn't hide from naming names. If "IgnorantGuyGamer" says something stupid, he will be named on the site.

I like this kind of public shaming. These guys shouldn't be able to get away with this shit. It's sad that, in this day and age, women have to either be afraid to be gaming online or have to grow super-thick skin in order to put up with it. And it's not just shooters. They can get it in an online casual poker game! "never play poker again. Your (sic) the worst player I've ever seen ohh by the way close your legs I can smell you from here."

That guy's Xbox Live name is now out there attached to that comment.

(Thanks to DigFest)

I like to think that I would be publicly calling this out if it were happening in a lobby that I was in (and I had my mic on, which I often don't). I did call out some racist guy who was making comments about black people during a Call of Duty game I was playing, but sadly it was my last game of the night so I couldn't tell whether it actually had any effect. That makes me think I would do so in a case like this too.

Guys out there, come on. Stop with this stupid bullshit. There should be no divide between male and female gamers. We're all just gamers. Period. Stop with the misogynist idiocy. If a woman is good at a game, it's not because she's a fat, ugly shut-in who got good because she can't get a man. Realize that hey, she might just be better than you if she's killing you all the time, and she's probably also a perfectly well-adjust businesswoman who happens to have gaming as a hobby.

Or, then again, you might just suck at this game.

Because we already know you suck at life.

Movie Review Misogyny

Being a gamer, I know that women who show themselves online, broadcasting the fact that they are female, can bring a lot of hate, or at least just lewd come-ons.

However, you would think movie reviewing would be safe from that.

You would be wrong, at least depending on what kind of movie the woman is reviewing.

I'm greatly looking forward to the new Avengers movie that's coming out next Friday. Everything I've seen of it points to it being a kick-ass movie with lots of action and it has Joss Whedon writing and directing, so the dialogue should be great too. Basically, it's a comic book fan's dream come true in movie form.

I do realize, however, that not everybody will share that opinion. Most critics who have already seen it, however, do share it. They give the movie very good reviews.

With one exception.

Reviewer Amy Nicholson gave the movie a mediocre review, 3-stars, with some complaints about it. They certainly could be valid, though I may not agree with them after I've seen the movie. I've never read any of her reviews before, so I don't know anything about her reviewing style or anything like that. There are definitely errors pointed out in the comments, such as calling the Nick Fury character "Nick Frost" (maybe she's a Simon Pegg movie fan? And apparently she's edited the review now to correct that mistake), so there may be a reason to avoid her reviews.

Why am I bringing this up?

Because she's getting slammed for it. And many of the slams are because she's a woman. (h/t: my good friend Engima667 on Twitter)

Some of the comments are pretty vile.

DVDA says:
"See internet, this is what happens when you give your PA the change to write reviews because it's cheaper than hiring a proper male writer."

3490314 says:
"She asked her boyfriend what score she should give. Just stick to rom-coms, bitch."

and the same person also says:
"Her boss/lover says it's better than having her make the coffee and answering phones and besides what else was she going to do with that creative writing degree daddy paid for?"

Movie2012 says:
"I know the first bad review was gonna come from a woman ....."

You get the idea.

Now many of the other comments talk about her reviews as a whole, or talk about her accuracy and proofreading. Maybe she does have the history that they claim that she has, regarding inconsistency in her reviews as an attempt to garner hits to the web site. All of that, if true, would be really bad. So I'm not defending her or her review.

What I am doing is calling out those who would go the whole sexism route. Why can't you just slam her for the quality of her reviews rather than making a comment about "getting coffee for the boss" or making cracks about her boyfriend telling her what to give the movie?

Women should be open to criticism for the job they are doing, just as men should. So why does gender have to be the issue?

I think some guys (despite what Melissa Silverstein says in her post, none of the obviously female commenters that I saw on there actually made any misogynistic statements) just have trouble dealing with any woman who dares set foot in the domain that they firmly feel should be a man's. That's why they get obnoxious and rude to female gamers, and that's why whenever a woman pisses them off in regards to a comic book movie, they get their backs up.

I only have this one example to go by. Amy says that this has happened to some of her other reviews, and to other reviewers as well, both men and women (though she says "...though men get more death threats while women get more poetry like, 'Whose $%#@ did you suck to get your job?'"

Is this really necessary, people?

C'mon, it's just a movie. Misogyny is ugly no matter what form it takes.

Book Review: Before the Pharaohs

There are some fascinating books out there on "Alternative History," and I'm not talking about science fiction "what if this happened instead of that?" books. I mean books that take a look at history in a new light, presenting new and interesting theories about what really happened. Some of them are idiotic ancient conspiracy theories, but others are food for thought, even if they do turn out to be crap in hindsight.

Back in 2006, I was on one of these kicks and I read two books that purported to turn History on its head. One of them was about the Templars and North America (maybe I'll post it later), but the other one fits this week's Egypt theme.

It's a book by Edward Malkowski called Before the Pharaohs, and it's a truly fascinating book that puts forth a lot of theories, both about the Sphinx (which is prominent on the cover) and about Egyptian civilization in general. Did you know that some people believe the Great Pyramids of Giza are not tombs but actually power conduits, a power source to create massive amounts of electricity?

Yeah, that's in there.

Malkowski's book is also the source of the "Sphinx must be dated before 10,000 BC because of soil erosion around it" theory that I mentioned in Sunday's post on Robert Temple's The Sphinx Mystery, though Malkowski is just telling us about that theory. He didn't come up with it.

In fact, there's a lot of that in Before the Pharaohs.

That doesn't mean it's a bad book, of course. It's actually very interesting.

If you can get through the first 60 or so pages.

From my review on Curled Up With a Good Book:

"Malkowski begins the book by looking at the Sphinx. "Aha!" I thought. "Starting at the top and then working his way down." In fact, no. Instead, we get several pages of in depth analysis of erosion and how the differing levels of such indicate that the Sphinx must be older than is currently claimed. There is no way that the erosion the Sphinx has suffered, via both wind and water, could have happened in the period of time estimated. This is fine in itself, but halfway through the chapter I just wanted to grab the author by the throat and cry "We get it! Get on with it!" Instead we get diagrams showing the different levels of the Sphinx and how far the erosion would go. What's even worse, one of the two experts whom Malkowski spends a lot of time detailing actually claims that rainfall runoff could account for the Sphinx being built from 3000 B.C.E to 2500 B.C.E. This dating, of course, falls within the current projections. So what was the point of this? The other scientist whom Malkowski heavily details claims that erosion and weathering on the Sphinx would mean that it must have been built between 7000 B.C.E and 5000 B.C.E. This could be an important point, but to begin the book with it?

The next chapter is on climate change. Malkowski tells us that the Saharan desert went through three cycles of climate change, getting wetter and then more arid and then back again, between 10,000 B.C.E. and 2800 B.C.E. He gives us much more than we could ever want to know about this, and then goes back to erosion rates, this time with graphs and tables! He uses all of this information to disprove the 3000-2500 dating for the Sphinx, stating that the other theory must be correct. He may very well be right, but by this time, I was ready to close my eyes. This was the most difficult beginning of a book I've had to get through in a while."

I had actually forgotten about the expert Malkowski quotes that mentioned rainfall erosion, since that's one of Temple's theories.

Then the book gets really good, talking about ancient timekeeping, the Giza Power Plant theory, and so much more. It's incredibly intriguing, and even if only part of it is true, it's still interesting stuff to read and theorize about.

For example, the theory that Mayan god-figures actually came to Egypt and became Egyptian gods, instead of the commonly-theorized other way around? That's cool. May be bull. But it's still cool.

This review has the most positive votes of any of my reviews on Amazon. I'm proud of that fact (not to mention proud of the fact that my Curled Up review is quoted in the "Editorial Reviews" section of the book's Amazon listing).

It's an endlessly fascinating book if you can get past the extremely detailed soil erosion theories. They literally almost killed me (and I use "literally" in the Joe Biden sense of the word).

Check out the review, and also let me know some of your thoughts on this kind of subject. Do you like "alternative history?" Any theories you'd like to share?

Should you "be yourself" at the office?

Maybe not if you're an asshole.

Let's take a break from the Egypt theme for a moment (it will be back tomorrow). Instead, there's a new article about a study to process!

Yes, the good old reliable Daily Mail has another article about a study. This one's not gender-related, so it may not set off people the same way those do (sorry, Dawnie).

"'Just be yourself' is advice often doled out to interview candidates - but it seems that it's just plain wrong.

People who show their 'true selves' in the work place tend to be less happy than those who 'lie'.

Honesty is often said to be the best policy - but while this may be true at home, it does not necessarily follow in the work place, say researchers."

This actually does make some sense, though I think it overstates what people really mean when they say something like "be yourself."

I mean, should this guy really be himself at the office?

(Thanks to Daily Fungo)

I don't think so.

But really, who honestly means "expose every aspect of yourself when you're at the office" when they say that?

The study shows that people are more likely to expose themselves...I mean be themselves... with their partners, followed by family and friends. And these people are happier than those who aren't. It also shows that people are less likely to "be themselves" at work, and those who do hide themselves are more happy than those who let it all out.

Probably more gainfully employed too.

Again, this misses the point and thus this appears to be a useless study (gee, where have we heard *that* before?).

To me, "be yourself" in an interview or at the office just means that you shouldn't be a completely different person than you are outside of the office, so much so that you're almost playing a character when you're at work. Don't try to pretend that you're an outgoing person when you're really not. Don't claim to be an expert at everything when you're quite clearly not an expert at anything.

That advice never means "make sure everybody knows you have a foot fetish" or "tell your boss what you really think of him and his leadership."

I think you should be yourself at the office. You just shouldn't be *all* of yourself at the office. There are things that don't need to be shared, and actions that don't need to be done.

"Dr Oliver Robinson, from the University of Greenwich in London, said: ‘You hear self-help gurus say that the secret of happiness is 'being yourself' or 'expressing your true feelings', but that doesn't seem to apply in the workplace - at least for the sample we studied.

‘So in some circumstances, it may be that a polite smile or tactfully keeping quiet may be more conducive to your well-being than saying what you actually think and feel to work colleagues.’"

This just boggles my mind. Who would ever suggest that this isn't the case? That you shouldn't "tactfully keep quiet" rather than running your mouth off about the fact you think your boss is a bozo or that your co-worker is an idiot?

Instead of being an offensive study, this just seems like a pointless one. It reinforces what we already know. People are happy expressing themselves to people who know and love them. They're not happy when they express themselves to people who would rather not know the person's sexual peculiarities or true thoughts about their job.

Bloody obvious, isn't it? (Yes, I said "bloody," since I'm sourcing a UK paper. Deal with it.)

Anybody else care to chime in?

Book Review: The Sphinx Mystery

One of the great mysteries of the ages is: just who or what is the Sphinx? You know what the Sphinx is, of course. That huge statue that's sitting there in the Egyptian desert on the Giza Plateau, an animal creature with a human head?

You know, this?

(Thanks to Kewl Wallpapers)

The mystery has always been who made this? Just how old is the Sphinx? Whose head is that on the Sphinx?

Those questions may never be officially answered, but one man thinks he has done so.

In The Sphinx Mystery: The Forgotten Origins of the Sanctuary of Anubis, Robert Temple and his wife Olivia claim that they have figured out everything about this giant monument.

Is he right?

Not being an expert in all of this, I can't really say yay or nay. I'm a book reviewer. All I can comment on is the book itself, and whether or not it's convincing.

I reviewed the book back in 2009, and apparently I wasn't posting my book reviews here, or I did it before I actually started this blog. Either way, it never showed up here. So, in keeping with my Egyptian theme this week ("theme" meaning at least two posts, because I'm not going to tie myself down any further than that, though there could be more!), here's my Curled Up With a Good Book review of Temple's tome.

You'd like an excerpt? I thought you'd never ask.

"Yes, I did say "Sanctuary of Anubis" in the last paragraph. One of the obvious things about the Sphinx is that the head is much too small for the huge body atop which it sits. Was it recarved into a pharaoh's image? If so, whose? Temple not only makes the case for who actually did the recarving, but he also has an interesting theory about what the Sphinx was before its current incarnation. He states that the Giza plateau, on which stand all of the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx just off to the side, is a sacred entrance to the realm of the dead, and that the Sphinx is the guardian of that entrance. While the Sphinx is commonly described as having the body of a lion, Temple says there is no way that this is a lion: instead, it's a giant statue of the god Anubis, the dog/jackal that deals with those crossing over from the living to the dead. He proposes that the statue was disfigured during the 150 years of chaos between the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt, and that a pharaoh decided to make it his own face instead."

I had never thought of it before, and I don't know much about lions and how they sit, but Temple is certainly right that the way the Sphinx is sitting on the ground does look a lot more like a dog than what our image of lions sitting is.

What about the age of the Sphinx, though? Aren't there erosion patterns (as some authors have claimed, more about which later this week) that indicate the Sphinx has to be vastly older than just 5000 years or so? These claims make it up to 10,000 BC or even earlier, which is amazing given the state of civilization (as in there wasn't much of one) back then?

Temple's solution to that is very nicely done. I have no idea if it's bullshit or not, but it does make sense.

"The Nile river flowed near Giza back in ancient Egypt, and would regularly flood every year. He claims that there is a channel around the Sphinx so that, for religious reasons, the Sphinx was an island unto itself for a large part of the year. Water flowed in and out of what he calls the "Sphinx Moat," either from the river itself or from collected rainwater (there was much more rain in Egypt back then) that the Egyptians funneled into the moat. The constant inflow and outflow of water into this moat accounts for the water erosion. It's a fascinating theory for those who are familiar with the other arguments."

Again, I have no idea whether Temple's theories are way out there or right on the mark.

What I do know is that the book is fascinating (though loses its way a bit toward the end, but by then you're already hooked). Added to this is Temple's "old-man" crankiness about the state of History and Archaeology today and how people actively avoid paying attention to evidence that's right in front of them.

That makes entertaining reading no matter what the subject. This book is great for those with an interest in Egyptian archaeology.

Let me know what you think of the review, too, in addition to your thoughts on the Sphinx itself.

Last Segments of Egyptian Book of the Dead Found

The archaeology of Ancient Egypt has always fascinated me, and I get a thrill when I hear about new discoveries about the ancient tombs, Pharaohs, or whatever. I know I have a few fellow travelers in that respect.

After yesterday's super-serious post, I thought I would present to you something that's more intriguing than anger-inducing.

Did you ever see The Mummy, with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz?

One of the objects in the movie, and one that causes a bunch of problems for our heroes, is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Evelyn (Weisz) reads a passage from the Book and it brings to life the ancient mummy Imhotep, a High Priest that was entombed for falling in love with the mistress of the Pharaoh.

We all know that these types of movies have tons of historical inaccuracies, but that's beside the point. They're a hell of a lot of fun. One inaccuracy is, of course, that they didn't have books back in Ancient Egypt. By "books," I mean bound copies with pages that you flip, even if they do appear to be metal plates or something like that in the movie.

No, they wrote everything on papyrus scrolls. Like this:

(Thanks to the Daily Mail)

The real Book of the Dead, or at least the most famous one, has been an incomplete set of papyrus scrolls and fragments that have been collected from museums over the last 100 years. But some pieces were still missing.

Until now.

Apparently, according to the Daily Mail, the last remaining pieces of this particular manuscript have been found in a museum in Queensland, Australia.

"‘After spotting the piece Dr Taylor was shown the other 100 plus fragments held in the Museum’s stores and was floored by what he had uncovered,’ Ms Bates said.

‘These unsuspecting papyrus pieces form the missing part of a highly historically valuable ‘Book of the Dead’ that belonged to the Chief Builder of the temple of Amun, Amenhotep."

I see what the producers of the movie did there. Nice subtle name change.

So what is a "Book of the Dead?"

"A ‘Book of the Dead’ is an Egyptian manuscript, up to 20 metres in length, of magical spells written on papyrus that were commissioned by families upon the death of a loved one to guide them on their hazardous journey into the afterlife."

There are apparently many books like this, but this one is special because it's one of only four or five that have "unusual features" compared to the rest of them. These sorts of things appear to indicate that a person was quite wealthy and influential.

Now that they've found these missing pieces, they can put them all together and electronically join them together into one actual book. The missing pieces have made it impossible to do that until now.

This also speaks to the sci-fi nerd in me. Does that surprise you?

It shouldn't, if you're a Dr. Who fan. Many of the older Dr. Who episodes were lost because the BBC deleted them back in the old days rather than keeping them. So for the past 30 years, missing episodes have occasionally resurfaced when found in an attic bin of an old collector or what have you, overlooked for years, sometimes in a film canister that wasn't labelled.

This kind of find reminds me of those Dr. Who episodes. Hiding in plain sight, with nobody who sees these pages daily even realizing what they have until somebody who knows what they're seeing actually spots it and brings it to our attention. These pages were donated to the museum by a collector and have been sitting there for years.

Yet another ancient mystery solved! Now if they can only determine what the Sphinx really is.

Oh wait. Somebody's already done that.

World War II a "European Civil War?"

History is being increasingly whitewashed, either to avoid "offending" anybody (such as the suggestion that the Holocaust not be taught in schools for risk of offending modern Germans) or in some weird attempt to foster European unity.

The latter appears to be the case in the latest outrage.

The European Union is opening a £44 million museum called the House of European history that will change World War II to be "the European Civil War." (h/t: National Review's "The Corner")

What blatant stupidity! Not to mention offensiveness. It signifies an increasingly narrow viewpoint that disregards anything that's not European in nature, all in the name of trying to unify the continent?

It's patently absurd.

(Hint to the EU: This didn't take place in Europe. Thanks to Answers to the Questions)

Donal Blaney in the Daily Mail says it best:

"Europhiles love to decry those of us who want Britain to become an independent nation state as "little Englanders" - despite the fact that we want Britain to continue its role as a global trading nation.

In truth the proposal to redesignate World War II as the European Civil War shows Europhiles to be "little Europeans" - insular, arrogant and inward-looking."

This idiocy completely ignores every other theater of the war, disregarding the Americans, Russians, Japanese, Australians, Chinese, and so many other nationalities who fought and died in this horrible war.

I think "insular" is probably a great word for it. Narrow-minded, disrespectful, and ignorant are some more great words for it too.

As Mark Steyn says (also on the Corner):

"If this were truly a 'European Civil War', it would have been over in nothing flat, because on the Continent of Europe every nation was either neutral, conquered, or on the wrong side. It’s hard to have a civil war with only one team."

Britain was the only European country holding out against the Nazis (Russia doesn't exactly consider itself part of any "European identity" that's being fostered, which is why I think Steyn excludes them in that quote), which doesn't make it much of a civil war, does it?

There are so many things wrong with the European Union as a political entity. This is just another example of how they are trying to force this "unity" down everybody's throats. One of these days, everybody's going to choke on it.

I'm not one to get on the "offense" gravy train, as I think people take offense to things way too easily. This, however, is offensive in so many ways. The exclusion (and thus disrespect) of so many millions of people who fought in World War II who aren't European. The reasoning behind it, creating some sort of artificial unity that nobody seems to really want.

All of that, but I also think that it reduces the fight against Nazism to some sort of political struggle rather than the fight against evil it was. Sure, countries didn't go to war to save the Jews and prevent the Holocaust (many denied it was happening at the time or didn't seem to care). But they did go to war to fight the same type of evil that would perpetrate the Holocaust, subjugate any race or nationality that got in the way of their plans for territorial expansion, and ostensibly want to take over the world.

Can that really be boiled down to a "civil war?" Even if you do just keep to the European part of the war?

That's the really offensive part.

Do Women Really Want a Job Because They Can't Find a Man?

There's a study, so it must be true!

I knew there was a reason I read the Daily Mail Online, and it wasn't for all the celebrity gossip. It's where you find the best studies.

Yes, apparently researchers have found that "the real reason women pursue careers is because they fear they are too unattractive to get married."

I didn't fabricate that quote! It's right there, in the article. Go look! I'll wait.

See? I'm not a sexist pig. I wouldn't make up something as outlandish as that.

(Thanks to The Fashionables)

There are a whole jumble of things in this study to take a look at.

So in the immortal words of Tone Loc, "let's do it."

First, the article seems to take that quoted sentence above and contradict it in the next sentence. Apparently, when men are scarce in an area, women are also more likely to choose a career over having a family.

That makes sense, of course. When I'm looking in the freezer for some ice cream and I see chocolate but not vanilla, I tend to choose chocolate. Or, you know, I could go to the store and get some vanilla. Did you ever think of that? Women might actually move if they want a family and there aren't any guys around? What a concept!

Of course, if they stay in the area, they're more likely to choose career. Because there are no men! What a stupid statement.

But then it gets even weirder. Ladies, please put down your pitchforks. I'm only the messenger.

Apparently the plainer a woman feels she is, the more driven she is to succeed in the workplace (the article first says "the plainer a woman is," but then later on mentions that it's self-perception). This could very well be true in some cases; in fact, it could be true in many cases. The thing is, I think this has a lot more to do with self-image issues in general, of which the feeling of attractiveness is only one aspect of that. Even "the beautiful people" can have self-image issues, feeling that they are useless (even if they do feel that they're hot) and that they can't do anything right. When you bring the self-image of somebody who doesn't think they're attractive into things, it's very possible you'll run into this. Even then, they may be driven to succeed but also afraid of failing or doing what's necessary to succeed.

Confused? I know I am. What it all boils down to, in my opinion, is that there is a lot more to the drive for success than whether or not you feel you're attractive.

The methodologies behind these studies are hilarious too. (I'm not a psychologist, obviously, though I do play one on TV. So I can't comment on whether these methods are scientifically sound or not. I can just say that they're funny)

"The first looked at the number of eligible men in an area, which they called the 'operational sex ratio'.

After collecting data from across the U.S., they found that as the number of eligible men in a state decreased, the proportion of women in highly paid careers rose.

In addition, the women who became mothers in those states did so at an older age and had fewer children."

Maybe I don't know my statistics, but I would think that if there are fewer men competing for jobs, it makes sense that there are more women in higher-paying jobs in a particular area. Am I wrong? If you have 50 men and 50 women competing for 50 jobs (all things being equal, of course), you would have a vastly different proportion of women in those jobs than if you had 25 men and 50 women competing for the same 50 jobs.

But here's where we get into the attractiveness function.

"The 87 young women were given mocked-up newspaper articles describing the sex ratio in nearby university campuses and were asked about their views on family and career.

They were also asked how attractive they believed themselves to be to men.

Those women who saw themselves as being less desirable than average were highly likely to be career-orientated."

First, isn't 87 women a bit small of a sample to make sweeping conclusions about half (or whatever the heck the proportion is) of the population on the planet? Or at least in the Western world?

Secondly, I think again this is getting into many more self-image issues than just self-perceived attractiveness.

Either I know a bunch of atypical women, or this study screams bullshit to me. (Yes, I'm aware that both of those could be true and not mutually exclusive, because I know some remarkable women).

I do notice that the article states that this study is "controversial" and contains a "startling" argument, but it never really gets into any of that. It just reports what the study says and moves on, with no dissenting view whatsoever.

What, they're leaving it for the comments?

So what do you think, ladies? Do you think this study is as full of it as I do?

Really unload. Tell me what you really think.

I can take it.

Hot Dogs and Pizza? Together?

After the seriously cool science posts of the last couple days, how about we try to gross you out now?

Hot dogs are a staple food for many of us as kids. Pizza is too. There is nothing that I like more than  scrumptious slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza. I don't care how bad it is for me.

Now Pizza Hut in the UK wants to give you both vivid tastes. AT THE SAME TIME!

We've had the Stuffed Crust pizza from the same restaurant, a pizza with gooey cheese *inside* the crust as well as on top. It was enough to make your mouth water (and then get glued shut when you took too big of a bite).

They want to give you that same experience, but with hot dogs. That's right. A hot dog stuffed crust pizza.

(Thanks to ABC News)

Doesn't that just look yummy?

And don't forget the mustard drizzle! Because really, who doesn't want a little mustard on their pizza?

Don't all raise your hands at once. I'm sure there's enough for everybody.

Is anybody else seriously grossed out by this like I am?  I love both of these foods, but I really don't want to taste them together. And who has mustard on their pizza?

Sure, all you legion of mustard-eating pizza fans, go ahead and storm the gates of my castle and show me the light, but I just can't see it.

That's not the grossest-sounding food image I've seen this week, though. That has to be the thought of Oreo cookies dipped in nacho cheese (thanks to Dan Ryckert, from Game Informer Magazine for that horrible image, and seriously, do you all see what you're missing by not being on Twitter?)

Thankfully, I couldn't find a picture of this, as I think it would truly disgust me. I am a benevolent blogger, and won't gross you out *too* much.

But Dan says it tastes great. Either he's insane (quite likely) or maybe I'm missing something?

Would you try it if it were offered to you? And would you buy a Hot Dog Stuffed Pizza?

The mind boggles.

Voyager - Exploring our Neighborhood in the Universe

Space exploration is something that can truly capture the imagination. Whether it's visualizing aliens visiting us or living on other worlds, or just how many planets may be orbiting the numerous stars that are scattered across the night sky, it really brings a sense of wonder.

Yesterday's post about the space shuttle inspired me to look a bit further into our space endeavours, and it reminded me of something else that started in the 1970s. Something that, believe it or not, is still going on.

That would be the Voyager 1 & 2 space probes that are currently wandering just outside our solar system, beyond the orbit of Pluto.

(Thanks to SpaceToday)

What a captivating thought. Something that we created and launched in the Summer of 1977 is still out there, having left our solar system and now currently in the Heliosphere (where the solar wind is slowed down by the pressure of interstellar gas). They will, at some point in the future, break through even this barrier and will enter truly interstellar space.

Believe it or not, we're actually still getting data from both of these probes.

Sure, the images have stopped. The last image received from the Voyagers came to us on February 14, 1990 (many thanks to the Voyager Timeline on the Voyager site for the date). On their trips out of the solar system, they visited most of the planets in the outer orbits of the solar system, returning some truly stunning images of Jupiter and Neptune.

(Storms on Neptune, taken by Voyager 2 - thanks to League of Reason)

Both probes interacted with Saturn as well, sending back remarkable images (the following two shots taken from the Voyager page on Saturn, check that page for other gorgeous shots)

(View of Saturn as Voyager approaches)

(False colour image of Saturn's rings as taken by Voyager)

It's so hard to believe that 1970s space technology is still running today, even so far away from home. The Pioneer 10 and 11 probes, which Voyager 1 passed a few years ago as the furthest man-made object ever, are long-dead. But the Voyager probes keep going on, and may go on for many years yet.

It's too bad that they are beyond the ability to send pictures now, but the wealth of scientific data about the area beyond Pluto is still invaluable. Then again, there may be nothing to see except gas, if it's visible at all. Can you imagine the starscape, though?

The Voyager probes are also pretty famous for what's on them as well as their scientific equipment. Both have a "Golden Record" with greetings, images, and sounds from Earth. They contain 115 images, and numerous nature sounds of Earth, such as rolling surf, wind, birds, etc. The greetings are in 55 languages, from ancient Akkadian to Wu (a modern Chinese dialect). Also included is 90 minutes of music.

While it will be 40,000 years before either probe reaches another star, who knows? Some passing transport ship might happen upon it, and we'll have met our first aliens! It's a true "message in a bottle."

Over the years, the Voyager mission has always intrigued me, but I've lost sight of it and stopped paying attention. Not anymore.

I'm bookmarking the Voyager site, checking back frequently, and going to see if there is an option for subscribing to updates.

Because this is seriously cool.

A Space Shuttle Celebration

For those of us at a certain age, the space shuttle represents the United States space program. We were kids when the shuttles first started their regular trips into orbit to run experiments in zero gravity or deploy satellites or whatever they were going to be doing.

We were too young for the Apollo space flights and Moon landings, and even the space station didn't really capture our awe of the universe and what might be out there. Perhaps that's because, while the shuttles would never go further than the space station, at least they were vehicles that were reaching for the stars, even if they never actually got there.

When the final shuttle mission ended last Summer, with Atlantis touching down after another trip to the space station, I have to admit I felt a little sad.

(Thanks to The Word of Ward)

Something that had been around since my childhood, the public face of NASA, was now no more.

Yes, there are still plenty of cool things going on in the space program, including ongoing images of Mars from the various robotic missions that have been sent up there (though mysteriously, a number of mishaps have prevented even more Mars exploration, such as the Mars Polar Lander crashing in 2005).

But unless you're really into space science, you really don't hear about all of that stuff unless something happens, which may prompt a short blurb on the news or in the newspaper. The shuttle was it.

I remember watching with rapt attention whenever the shuttle was going to be launched. It was just such a cool thing to see that huge blast of gas and exhaust as the rockets fired and the long torpedo-like fuel tank that dwarfed the shuttle itself slowly rose from its station.

(Thanks to How Stuff Works)

It carried a majesty that was hard to compare to anything else going on in our lives.

I also remember the horror when I heard that the space shuttle Challenger had blown up 73 seconds into its flight on January 28, 1986. I was fifteen, in my first year of high school. I don't remember exactly how we were told, unfortunately. It may have been an intercom announcement. It may have just been buzz around the school. It was being followed because school teacher Christa McAuliffe was on that flight. It was a tragedy no matter who was on it, of course, but it hit home for us a little more because one of us were on the flight. Astronauts were heroes, but we couldn't always relate to them. But a teacher? Somebody like our Biology teacher, who we could have known? That really hurt.

After a hiatus while they checked into safety procedures and reworked things, shuttle flights continued, and they almost became passe. That's a shame, because the engineering prowess it takes to do any of this stuff, whether it's getting them ready for launch or docking with a moving object in space or whatever, is simply phenomenal when you think about it.

And now the shuttle is done. The shuttle Discovery is preparing to make its final journey, to the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Carried as always on the back of a trusty 747 airplane, the same way it habitually made its trip from its landing zone in California back to where it launches in Florida.

(Thanks to the Daily Mail UK and, of course, Reuters)

Hopefully it will capture the attention of youth who go there for many years to come.

Of course, there are the old arguments that have probably been going on since the Shuttle program began: is this a good way to use our space resources? Does this move our attempts to explore the solar system and the galaxy forward at all? Why can't we go back to the Moon and, later, Mars and even further? Does the Shuttle program represent stagnation?

All of those questions and argument are valid.

But as the shuttle goes off into Smithsonian retirement, those aren't the questions that come to mind right now.

Instead, I wonder if anything in our space program will ever capture the attention of the public again. Will we ever see another spectacle that will wow us? That will keep us glued to the news when it launches or when whatever it is happens? That will renew the enthusiasm for space exploration that the Apollo missions and the shuttles did when they first started?

I truly hope so.

Podcast Stuff - Ep 33 of Down the Hall

With the return of this blog, it's the return of plugging our show!

Episode 33 of Down the Hall is now up!

Jenny talks to Norman Daoust, Director, Academic & Information Technologies in the Faculty of Education about the direction e-learning is taking in the faculty. He also talks about the importance of educational technology and producing teachers who are skilled in its uses. It's a fascinating interview, I thought, and for more than just UBC people. I usually do the Ed Tech stuff for the podcast, but Jenny did a great job with the interview!

Before that, we talk about the Vancouver Canucks and the top 4 things on our Education Bucket List, things that we want to learn before our time expires (which will be a long time from now, so we've got a lot of leeway on when to do it).

And we posted on Friday the 13th! I'm hoping that wasn't a bad omen.

While you're at it, why not go over to Facebook and like us? I'm feeling very unloved right now. *sniff*

Let us know what you think!

The Legion of Blog - the Canucks 7th Men

Apologies in advance to all of my international readers (Hi, Sven!), because this post is going to be very Vancouver-centric. In fact, it's going to be hockey-centric, so that probably kills many of the rest of my audience.

But I don't care, because it's my blog and I can make what I want out of it. I can make a hat, or a brooch, or a pterodactyl (10,000 Quatloos for whoever gets that reference).

Anyway, it's time for the NHL playoffs to start! Game One is tonight, where the Vancouver Canucks play the Los Angeles Kings in a best of seven series. Assuming they're able to repeat last year's efforts (and hopefully win one more game), this is the beginning of a grueling two months of hockey, for both the players but also the fans who live and die with their team. Garments will be rent, much beer consumed, and people will fall off the Bandwagon and climb back on as their team's fortunes ebb and flow. It's a great time to be a hockey fan.

Today's blog is to extol the virtues of a gaggle of great guys, collectively known as the Legion of Blog from the Vancouver Province sports section. These guys together do a bunch of humorous Vancouver Canucks posts about anything and everything regarding the team, and hockey in general. Do the Canucks need Trevor Linden to be part of the team in order to win the Cup this year? Wyatt Arndt makes the case for why the team should hire him for the inevitable press box shot to push the team over the edge.

Does Don Cherry confuse you as much as he does the rest of Canada?

He probably does, especially when he makes you wonder what sofa no longer has any upholstery on it.

Anyway, Cam Charron agrees with you! And he'll showcase it every week.

I read these guys religiously, always checking to see what other new posts may have come up since the last time I looked. Since there are four of them (five? I think four), there are guaranteed to be posts every day (or almost every day, anyway). Of course, as with every comedy routine, there are some that bomb, but their hit rates are generally pretty good. I love the post-game recaps done by Wyatt, the Post-Game Quotes We Wish Were Real done by J. Bowman.

While I like all of the bloggers on there, I really like Wyatt because we've connected on Twitter a few times. I followed him before he became a blogger.

He's known on Twitter as "The Stanchion," and he created the account after this legendary goal by Kevin Bieksa in Game 5 of the series against San Jose.

The puck rebounded off the stanchion and right to Bieksa's stick. Wyatt's twitter feed was hilarious for months after that as he pretended to actually be the Stanchion (talking about the Canucks may not offer him a contract this year, things like that), until the Province was looking to replace their current sports humour bloggers. Wayne was one of the people who applied, and the Province decided to go with a Legion instead.

I also feel a connection with Wayne because he works at UBC, but that's neither here nor there. We've never actually met.

Whatever the case, all of the bloggers in the Legion are hilarious and well-worth reading, and may get Canucks fans through this long two-month ordeal (hopefully two months, or it will mean they bowed out early).

Because even when your team is down for the count, you need to laugh.

*Edit*Oh, how embarrassing. "Wayne" Arndt notified me that, of course, his name is *Wyatt*, not Wayne. The perils of dashing off posts on your lunch break. Sorry, Wyatt!!!

The Most Annoying Alarm Clock in the World

And no, it's not your mother.

Do you have trouble getting up in the morning? Is that temptation to hit the snooze button just too hard to resist?

Have you missed meetings because you've overslept? (I don't mean actually sleeping through them, and by the way, you over there, I heard you snoring this morning during my presentation).

If you fall into all of those categories, then we have the alarm clock for you!

In looking for something to write about, I went to my old stand-by, the UK's Daily Mail newspaper. This time I didn't find a hilarious study. Instead, I found this gem about a new alarm clock invented by one Paul Sammut from Hoboken, New Jersey (it doesn't actually say New Jersey, but I don't think there's a Hoboken in the UK, is there?)

Here it is in all its beauty.

(Picture taken from the article as well)

What makes this clock so special? Because it has no snooze button. In fact, there is no way to turn it off other than the proper way which makes sure you're up.

From the article:

There is no snooze button. If you unplug it, a battery takes over. As wake-up time approaches, you cannot reset the alarm time.
It could be the world's most exasperating alarm clock.

Once it goes off, to stop it you must get out of bed, go into the kitchen or bathroom, and punch the day's date into a telephone-style keypad.

That's the only way to stop the loud `ding-ding,' designed to sound like a customer angrily banging on a concierge bell at a hotel.

Is that neat or what? (Please put down that 2x4 you're holding over your head)

Apparently he built the prototype himself and has used it because he has trouble getting out of bed. A friend suggested he sell it, and he raised funds on Kickstarter (a very cool web site where you can propose ideas or products and have people voluntarily fund them or invest in them, which has worked beautifully for a couple of video game ideas). He's raised $150,000 and formed a company to make these clocks, already receiving 400 orders.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't link to Paul's site or anywhere that you can get more information on the clock, and it leaves out some vital stuff.

For instance, it mentions that you have to get up and go into the bathroom/kitchen/wherever to punch in the PIN code to turn it off. Is the thing wireless? Do you have some other object standing on the counter in the other room that's linked to this somehow? We only see the picture of the clock itself. Rather than another picture of the same clock (in fetching white, but still), why not have a picture of the entire contraption together?

I'd also love to know whether this is only being marketed to single people. Because if you're married or living together (or even with a roommate or two!), I can just imagine their reaction to this loud clanging noise going off every morning.

Also, how does it work where you can't reset the time? Is there a switch in the clock that, for example, will cut off the ability to change the alarm time 30 minutes before it's set to go off? An hour? I assume you can reset it at night, so what's the drop dead time ("Ha! I see what you did there" - The Peanut Gallery) for changing your alarm time?

Finally, who in their right mind would pay $350 for an alarm clock? Are you having *that* much trouble waking up in the morning? I guess some people do have that much trouble, but $350? That just boggles my mind.

Especially when a far cheaper alternative would be having your alarm clock on the other side of the room, so you have to get up even to hit the snooze button. How many people, once they're actually out of bed, are going to lie back down? If you do, I'd say you have a lot more problems than just not being able to get up to your alarm clock.

Still, that's the really cool thing about funding projects on Kickstarter. You have a ready-made audience of people who are already putting their money down to say "I want this." If you don't get the people interested to begin with, you haven't lost anything other than time. It's not like you've built a bunch of these things, later trying and failing to get anybody to actually purchase them. If Paul has 400 orders for them already and has raised over $150,000 for the project, more power to him. I hope it's really successful for him.

I just can't see it.

Do you have this much trouble getting up in the morning? What kinds of solutions do you have to avoid the Snooze Button Blues?

(It's probably fitting that I write this on the last day where I *don't* need an alarm clock in a week. Back to work tomorrow!)

A Great Way to Meet People!

Sometimes it feels like we're living in an increasingly closed society where the only friends we have we've never met. Or we only communicate with them online because somebody's moved away. I may be jaded, though, as that seems to be the type of person I am right now. That being said, I think it is becoming more of an issue as time goes on, with people shutting themselves away.

Do you have trouble meeting people, like I do? I recently discovered a great new site that many of you have probably already heard of called Meetup. (Many thanks to an author and incredibly nice woman I met at V-Con last year and who I talk to on Twitter a bit, Sandra Wickham, for pointing me to this site). No, it's not a site for clandestine rendezvous or anything like that. Basically, it's a site where groups of people can find others with similar interests and get together socially. It can be for activities, or just discussing common things.

(Thanks to Egreog's Place)

Sandra pointed me to the site because there is a Dr. Who group on there she thought I might like (my Twitter handle is whovian223, so she figured I was a Who fan). However, given the writing class I just finished, I decided to look and see if I could find a writers group too. As I mentioned the other day, I did find a group called the Vancouver Independent Writers Group, and I've had a blast at the last two meetups.

Funnily enough, both of them have been at coffee houses (though one served beer, thankfully). I'm looking forward to many more great conversations with my fellow writers. It looks like we typically meet every two weeks. One time for something purely social (the karaoke nights apparently haven't been that successful) and the next for just a sit-down discussion where we're also welcome to read some of our work if we want to.

The best thing about Meetup is that it's worldwide, but it always takes into account where you are, though you can find meetups elsewhere by just typing in a new location when you're searching. When I type in something, it will only show local things unless I tell it otherwise. If you live in the heart of Texas, you will find things local for you. It's genius!

How does Meetup work?

Just go to the site and type in something that you're interested in. Are you into knitting? I just typed "Knitting" into the search engine and found a bunch of different groups in Vancouver. Joss Whedon fan? I know there's at least one group in Vancouver, and I think there are more.

Find a group that looks interesting and join it (after creating your Meetup account, of course)! Some groups may have to approve members first, but others are open. They may request a bio so that they can be sure that your interests meet the groups (the Vancouver writers group asked things like "what do you write?" and "favourite author?")

The group organizer (members can suggest meetups) can organize a meetup and post it to the group. Maybe you want to organize a meet up at the local pub to have some beers and talk about your dating life (if you're in a dating group). Set it up! Members will RSVP officially on the site, so you'll know how many people are planning to attend. Of course, you may get people who don't RSVP but just show up, or something might come up and somebody who did respond may not come. The good thing is that you have an idea of who you're going to be seeing when you show up.

I haven't attended a meetup with the Dr. Who group, though I'm looking forward to seeing everybody there. I'm really enjoying the writing group, though.

You can even just see what's trending locally to see if there might be something that you didn't even realize you might be interested in.

As an example (though it's not an example I'm interested in, obviously), currently trending in Vancouver is the Vancouver Women's Newcomers Social Club, a group for women new to Vancouver to meet some people here. I can see how this would be a valuable group for a woman who's new to the city and doesn't have many (or even any) friends here.

It's a great site if you like to socialize but you're having trouble finding people to do it with!

Using Your Phone While Eating - No Longer Rude?

I love my phone. As a social media junkie (Seriously! I've been to the meetings. Everybody's on their phone Tweeting their comments), I love the ability to get on it at any time and connect with people. During intermissions at the hockey games, the wife and eye are both checking out Twitter and doing other things on our phones. Don't worry, we talk during the game, so it's not like we're not communicating.

That's why it doesn't surprise me that more and more people are using their phones while dining out. Getting on your phone or listening to the baseball game clandestinely during a dinner out used to be considered the height of rudeness. Is that no longer the case in our internet-smothered society?

(Thanks to Impact Lab)

According to an infographic put out by market research firm Lab42 (shown on the Mashable social media news site), apparently it is.

The numbers are actually kind of staggering when you put them all together.

There are some interesting stats on that infographic, so I encourage you to go take a look at it. Here are a few of the things that stood out to me, though.

1) A whopping 85% of respondents trust online reviews from fellow diners over food critics and professional reviews on food sites and the like. That floored me because I know what a lot of people think about the general public. I hope that those who answered this in the affirmative actually take all of the reviews together and use their brains to sift through the idiots out there. I think this shows that the "common" people actually trust their compatriots to steer them right more often than they do their "betters" who are being paid to put this stuff out there. This might get blurred a bit when you talk about smaller sites who may not fall into either category easily (I know somebody who does this, and I would say she would fall into the group that's more trusted, even though I believe she's getting paid for it).

I wonder whether this is true for book reviews as well? I could be sitting on top of a gold mine!

(Thanks to Bucket & Boomers)

2) The primary reason for using your smartphone during dinner is taking pictures of your food.

Really? Taking pictures of your food is the most popular? That seems to be true, at 24%. A full 19% post Facebook updates (doesn't mention Twitter, so not sure whether that's factored in or not). I would bet that a good number of those food pics are actually posted as part of the updates, too. When you're eating out, you have to share with everybody what you're eating! Boy, doesn't this look delicious?

I found doubly hilarious that 13% of people are spending their time on their phones while eating by looking for someplace to go afterward. I guess it's too much to ask to have made plans in advance? The truly funny part, though, is that 70% of these people are men. I guess that just makes sense, doesn't it?

3) It's almost a majority! Fully 49% of people consider their phone at least somewhat important to their dining experience. This doesn't necessarily mean using it during the meal, as I'm sure this includes those who used their phone to find a good place to eat at moment's notice and looked up user reviews and all that. Still, how far have we come where almost half of the population sees their phone as an important part of the eating process?

I'll bet these guys would be shocked now (thanks to Spacecoast Medicine)

So what do you think of all this? Do you find your phone important for dining out? Do you use it while eating? How about setting up your dining out plans? Do you post status updates of your food?

Us curious people want to know.

Who is that Stranger?

This may be where I appear in a puff of smoke, hacking and coughing because some of it got up into my lungs and all that. But appear I shall!

Some of you must really have been wondering what had happened to me. If I have any followers who don't also follow me on Twitter or Facebook (or even on Game Informer, where I have still been posting some blogs that you should read if you want a laugh), you probably were wondering if some giant chasm opened up in the Earth and swallowed me whole.

(Thanks to Laughing Squid)

Actually, that did happen, except that I managed to avoid it by using my super powers.

But I digress.

I've written quite a bit over the last six months before my final post on January 22 (has it been that long?) about getting into writing funks, wondering whether I had the determination and will to keep going on this blog. The desire to write blog posts and come up with interesting topics was just eluding me. It was starting to feel forced, and more and more it became a place to post my book reviews and latest podcasts and that's it. Pretty boring if you're not interested in either of those. I would come back raring to go for a brief period of time, and then the desire would leave again.

Finally, after going through the motions in January, I just stopped. Is it ironic that this came shortly after my "I'm feeling newly invigorated!" post that I did on January 2? I think it is.

Anyway, things have continued on in the life of Dave, even if I haven't been sharing it here.

The short story writing class that I mentioned in my New Year's post actually did happen. Eight weeks and we wrote a lot! I really enjoyed it. Had some great classmates (though I'm a bit disappointed that nobody seemed to connect outside of class, or at least not with me). We had a great time sharing our writing with each other, giving us some wonderful critiques and I produced a couple of short stories that I may do something with some day. The class was taught by Alison Acheson, and she was a wonderful instructor. She gave us very good feedback, writing tips, as well as the inspiration to keep writing.

I really do want to keep the wheel rolling, and while I haven't written as much as I would have liked since the course ended, the inspiration is still there. I wanted to join a writer's group and keep going. I'm not sure I'm ready for a critiquing group yet, or at least one that meets every couple of weeks. Maybe after the NHL play-offs are over and I have more evenings free. I did, however, join a writers group called The Vancouver Independent Writer Group that I found on Meetup.com. I've been to two of their gatherings now, where we go to a coffee shop (at least the two I've been to, though I know at least one of the previous ones was sushi) and just talk. Mostly about writing, but just anything really. I'd talk more about it, but why rob myself of a blog topic possibility?

The same goes for Meetup.com, a great site that I will blog about later.

We have also had five podcast episodes posted since I stopped writing here. You can find the link to all of them here. And if you bookmark that page, you can always find them.

So yes, I am alive. I am active. I've just been in a funk, the worst one I've had in a while. I haven't even been reading blogs (other than political/news blogs), so I'm way behind on my friends' blogs like Healing Morning. I will read the backlog that I've missed, Dawnie! I promise.

I've decided to use this week I'm taking off (only needing three vacation days to get Wednesday-Tuesday off because of the Easter holiday...WIN!) to start up this blog again. I may add a new template to really make it new, but not sure if I'm in the mood for *that* much work. I am back, though, at least for the time being. I don't want to unduly stress myself by making promises I might not be able to keep, so I'm not going to say this is permanent. I hope it is. I truly want it to be.

Finally, before I close out, I wanted to send a shout-out and thank you to Raquel, an old friend. She's going through a tough time right now, and I reached out to her because of that. In the process of doing that and our conversing about it, she mentioned how much she enjoyed my blog. It's hearing things like that, completely out of the blue and from unexpected sources (as opposed to expected sources, which are also wonderful to hear and well-appreciated, but don't have quite the same impact), that give me inspiration. While I've been mulling over whether to revive the blog or not, it was her saying that which put me over the edge and made me decide to do it this weekend.

So thank you, Raquel.

For now, Dave's mind is buttoned back up, and ready to spill over with bloggy goodness.