Month: April 2010

Think globally, act locally

  • A clear explanation as to why the pseudo-science “Body Mass Index” doesn’t mean a thing.
  • Targeted magnetic fields can make people more inclined to judge outcomes, not intentions.

    We all stand like angels, every one of us, wings folded against uncertain futures, a string of decisions defining our wake. We stand like angels as we live, individual, unique. I want from you, you want from me, motivations building opportunities for happiness every day.

    Someone shouted at me from a car earlier today, calling me a hateful bitch when I responded to his catcalls with, “You’re being rude.” But you know what? I try to live well. I recycle, I use my purchasing dollar to support fair business, I pirate media but introduce it to people I know will buy it. I send TED talks out to everyone possible. I fight for science, literacy, and higher quality education. I encourage small, easy changes, like only using cold water for laundry, as well as the more difficult ones, like refusing to back down when people ask “what’s the harm in holistic medicine?”. I believe in equal rights, supporting charity, and changing the current paradigm with better information architecture. Plus, last time I heard, I’m phenomenal with the kissing. Guy in the car? You’re an ass. Go suck rotten lemons.

    • tulle, fire-spinning, and poetry

    Apartment To-Do List

  • Sell giant mirror.
  • Paint my room white.
  • Paint the livingroom white. Update: purchased one pail of white paint
  • Paint the mirror frames.
  • Obtain cat-resistant curtains.
  • Obtain new bed sheets.
  • Obtain new underwire underwear. Breakout Bras had Harlequins on sale!
  • Reorganize hall closet.
  • Frame the posters/art. Framed: one portrait of my mother.
  • Find my bloody tutu. Found! Apparently I crammed over 26 meters of tulle into a tiny shoebox under my bed.

    Heading down to Seattle again this weekend, this time to catch my friend’s 14-piece rock circus band, The Mutaytor, as they take the stage at Neumos on Sunday. They’re actually playing Whistler’s snowboarding festival tomorrow night, but trying to trek after them is a task out of my league. Better to just stay put and let them come to me!

    Also upcoming, the Vancouver Poetry Slam Finals on Monday. Even if you’re like me and mostly skip every single other slam for the entire year, (poetry slam drama bingo anyone?), this is the Big Show, the one not to miss, where the best of the best of this year’s contentants duke it out literary style to make it onto the next Van Slam Poetry Team and onward to the International Finals!

    • I’ve got a lot of bitches to plow

    2010 To-Do List

    0. Get out of debt. 1. File taxes 1999-2009. 2. Learn to drive. 3. Finish highschool. 4. Get new glasses. 5. Take a dance class. 6. Learn something new.

    Expanded:

    1. Filing taxes requires having paperwork that I do not have. The government will provide them, though not right away. Once the paperwork is provided, I should be able to file the entire ten years all at once. Task mostly requires patience and obscene gobs of waiting, as well as calling numerous tax office help lines. (Cost: unknown.)
    UPDATE: I have an appointment on April 26th to request my T4s.

    2. Obtaining a driver’s license in BC is a multi-year process. First you must pass a written knowledge test, which I have no qualms about, and pass a vision screening test, which I am almost certain to fail, as my current glasses are scratched to a fog. This gets you a Learner’s license. After a year has passed as a Learner (L), you are then allowed to take your Class 7 test. When you pass the Class 7 road test, you’ll be given a Class 7 Novice (N) licence. You will need to display an N sign and obey the N restrictions. You will remain in the N stage for at least 24 months. After 24 months in the N stage, then and only then may you take the second road test. If I were to pass a written test tomorrow, I would not have a proper drivers license until I was thirty. Yes, it’s ridiculous. No, it does not B.C.’s roads any safer. For the record, I passed the written before, but it expired before I could do anything about it. (Cost: $15/written test, ?? – $1200/driving lessons, $50/driving test, $31/two year N license, $75 actual license.)

    3. The General Educational Development (GED) is a set of five multiple choice tests in the areas of language arts writing, language arts reading, social studies, science and mathematics. The language arts writing test also requires the writing of an essay. By passing the tests, GED certificate holders demonstrate they possess academic abilities that are equivalent to those of secondary school graduates. Specific knowledge, however, such as mathematical and scientific formulas, specific literary works, etc., is not tested. Lucky me? They are only held seven times a year, on very particular dates. The next testing date is APRIL 30/MAY 1, which is my one year anniversary with Tony. The next one after that is JUNE 4/5. (Cost: $60/GED test, $10/Transcript of Marks.)

    4. Thom, the fellow from LastWear, pointed me in the direction of Zenni Optical, as a reliable place for cheap on-line glasses. He swears by them, and his eyes are almost precisely as wretched as mine, if not worse. They only need your prescription and pupillary distance, the distance between the pupils of the eyes, center to center. This is significant, as last time I got glasses, my lenses alone cost approximately $350. (Cost: $75-90/eye exam, $20-$90/glasses.)

    5. I felt I had to throw something on the list that didn’t feel dire. The Drive Dance Center just up the road has some nice looking mid-week classes I’d like to take. I’ve been feeling like a whale lately, a pale, soft creature, blubbery as protection against cold, and exercise can only do me good. Plus, dancing! I love dancing! You know what I don’t love? Sit-ups. And that none of my clothes fit. (Except for the most recent batch, in size large, that I bought so I would stop feeling like I couldn’t leave the house). (Cost: $145/11 weeks of progressive 1 hour clasess.)

    6. Word.

    jumping through those hoops

  • How Stuff Works: The Cellphone
  • When rats play The Prison’s Dillemma.

    I’m filing taxes for the very first time this year, (ten years of them, all at once), calling government phone numbers, getting shuffled between departments. The basic instructions: use your T4 slips to fill out your tax forms. Me, I don’t really have any. My employers over the years have been mostly been either shady, strange, or unreliable. I have a red box high up on a shelf in which I keep all my employment forms, and let me tell you, there are mighty few of them. After years and years, it’s barely half full. Thankfully the government has a contingency plan for such situations, a phone number to call that lets you request your slips directly from them. Easy, right? Not for a first timer.

    Because I’ve never filed before, I don’t exist in their computers. Because I don’t exist in their computers, I was told I have to mail a physical letter to the tax office requesting my forms. Quaint. After writing my letter on some nice stationary and putting it in a matching envelope, all proper and sealed, I tried to call the tax office to double-check the address only to discover that the phone number was disconnected. Less quaint. Calling the help-line again, I stumbled upon the fact that rather than mailing my request, I can make an appointment to request them in person. “Much quicker,” they said, and then tried to connect me to the appointments line. All the numbers lead to Ontario offices, however, closed at five central time, and so she collected my information and told me they would call me back tomorrow. The upshot is, after three hours juggling information, writing letters, and waiting on hold to various pleasant sounding people who weren’t quite sure what to do with me, the tax office is going to call me tomorrow afternoon so I can make an appointment in two weeks time to request some forms that will take another two weeks to arrive.

    Bureaucracy at its finest. I’m not even at the complicated part yet.

    • Hey Seattle! Mutaytor’s playing the Neumos on Sunday. It’s going to be a fine good time. Be there!

  • Alice in Wonderland on the iPad
  • The Kids Are Alright, a refreshing review of the iPad.

    Spent an extra day in Seattle yesterday just cleaning, scrubbing the apartment from ceiling to floor, collecting enough cat-hair out of corners to make an eccentric fur coat. My entire body hurt by the end of it. Given Tony’s propensity to neglect his surroundings, even the laundry was a trial, six heavy loads of sheets, towels, blankets, and various miscellany carried wet up two flights of stairs, left hanging to dry in the windows and on doors, the better to save quarters from the dryer.

    My place, thankfully, isn’t half as bad, but even so, I can’t imagine what could inspire me to put that much concentrated effort into my own place in Vancouver. I tend to let dishes sit a few days, clutter tends to obscure my shelves, and my carpet only appears whole and intact for sporadic patches of time, generally short. Cleaning my room takes about a week, as I tidy in small doses, multitasking my way through various chores until I’ve crossed enough off the to-do list that I can take a break without guilt.

    In this case, it was the imminent possibility of fourteen (splendid) houseguests descending all at once, as my friends, the Mutaytor, only found out last minute that Neumos, their Sunday night venue in Seattle, isn’t going to cover a hotel. They found alternate crash space, thankfully, as I suspected they might, but as excellent excuses go for a hard day of spring cleaning, I can’t think of anything better, except maybe a suprise visit from the Queen.