jen

Russian TV with Ukrainian subtitles

Feb 042007

…or the other way around, not sure which. In a room in an Odessa hotel that is frequented by gangsters and prostitutes (the hotel, that is, not the room). Social research:

Criteria:

- evening prime-time
- 74 channels

Content observations (in channel order):

military drama (guys in uniform, weeping women) … street racers and their pimped-out cars (with background Russian rap soundtrack) … a two-minute commercial for fur coats (guys in fur coats look totally silly) … football … overdubbed cartoon bears and mice – oh wait, it’s Garfield, in a FLAGRANT Bugs Bunny rip off, they should be ashamed … a commercial that is either selling kitchen renovations or haute couture, not sure which … Strepsils, Maybelline … women-in-prison drama, the warden is a profiteering lesbian – wait, the innocent female inmate with a black eye is cutting pictures out of Playboy magazine; this is apparently character development, moving on … talking head – ahh, “Victor Yushenka”, this is Ukrainian news … whale sharks, gentle giants of the deeps, being harrassed for their own good and our viewing pleasure by bronzed, sun-bleached scientists … more military drama (seems to be a theme) … home-improvements how-to (hey, I like “before” better than “after”) (cripes, what’s the appeal of these shows – “look, it’s a drawer” “look, a sink” “look, a vase of fake flowers”) … military drama, woah, this is a big deal here … a day in the life of a champion wrestler (luckily the children have not inherited the father’s prominent cranial ridges) … cripes, don’t these people have any sit-coms? no wonder they’re so depressed … weight loss commercial, “you too can have this ass” … overdubbed movie … football – oh, wait animated football, like in a video game … video-game style animated warrior battles … oh, hey, this is more like it – kids in folk costumes doing pop song-and-dance numbers with an aging 5 piece band in the background, emcee in white shoes, oh yeah, Euro-Vision here we come … leopards having sex, isn’t nature wonderful … violent psycho murder scene, good guy speeds away – wait a minute, that’s Vancouver! … sixties Bollywood movie, only the dialog is overdubbed into Russian, not the song-and-dance numbers …

Everywhere in the world is starting to look exactly the same.

omfg! Vancouver runs out of coffee!

Vancouver No Responses »

Nov 182006

Mayhem in the streets! Emergency services collapse! Looting, raping and pillaging spread!

Call out the national guard! (Wait – does Canada have a national guard? shite, why didn’t we think of this earlier…)

All this because Vancouver is under a boil-water advisory due to landslides caused by heavy rains that have increased turbidity in the tap-water supply. (Vancouver’s newest fave word – “turbidity” – rolling luxuriously off tongues everywhere.)

A crazed man, obviously in the last stages of dehydration, panting, glassy-eyed, ran over a reporter’s toes at Costco with a shopping cart full of bottled water.

A woman standing nearby, watching the water scrum, with a cart in which water was noticeably absent, laconically remarked to the reporter: “It’s raining. Put out a bucket.”

The fundamental social structure is breaking down. The survivalists were right – head for the hills and claim your hollow stump while you can.

Pete McMartin in the Vancouver Sun: “This emergency message is to inform you that you possibly may not die of thirst.”

“For many of us the emergency meant no change to our routine, since we continued to do what we have always done, which is drink wine.” ibid.

27,694 people will call into work sick on Monday with gastrointestinal disorders. 27,546 of them will be lying.

1,275,983 people have had their chicken-little beliefs in immanent doom validated.

The Brussels penny scam

I Been Everywhere No Responses »

Oct 072006

Canadian Penny
Originally uploaded by Kasia/flickr.

I was in Brussels recently, and ran across a good little scam. Euro five-cent pieces look sort of like Canadian pennies. When I arrived in Brussels, I transferred all of my Canadian change to a bag in my backpack so I wouldn’t get it mixed up with my euro change. After I ran some errands, I found that I had a few Canadian pennies in my change. I assumed I’d missed a few coins, and got rid of them.

Euro Five
Originally uploaded by pajp.

Then I went out again and bought a few more things, and again found that I had a few Canadian pennies. Where were they coming from? Ah – people slip Canadian pennies into a handful of change and, unless you look closely, you don’t notice that you’ve been ripped off. The scammer makes about four Euro-cents in profit each time he / she pulls off the scam.

Somewhere in Brussels, there is a lively market for Canadian pennies. I wonder if there are penny smugglers; given how widespread the scam is, people must be bringing Canadian pennies into the country, rather than relying on the few that would show up on their own. And I wonder if the penny smugglers sell Canadian pennies for, say, two Euro cents.

And I wonder if the Bank of Canada has considered the opportunities for our monetary policy.

I don’t have Web 2.0

Crunch Head No Responses »

Aug 102006

As seen on digg:

“I don’t have Web 2.0. I’m still on the old Web 1.0. When was the upgrade and who do I contact to get the upgrade files? I don’t think my ISP is set up for Web 2.0 yet. “

Please step out of the car, ma’am

Do the Right Thing No Responses »

Dec 292005

I lied to a border guard recently for no good reason other than I didn’t want to have to try to explain why I’d driven to Seattle and then turned around and driven back to Vancouver. (“Well, I was supposed to be meeting friends – no, I don’t know where exactly – exit 68, I think, in a Denny’s or Shari’s or some ghetto place like that – no I don’t know where they are currently – they live in Vancouver but they’re from the states – they sent me an email and I didn’t see it before I left so when I finally called I found out they had a personal emergency …” Yadda yadda yadda.)

I knew the border guards would be suspicious that I’d only been across the border for 2.5 hours, but I figured that that true story sounded so flaky that I’d get called in *for sure*. So instead I lied and told the border guard that my Mom had called and that there was a family emergency so I had to turn around and come back to Canada.

How did they know???

Obligatory Oi No Responses »

Oct 072005

There is an art to everything…

art - harumph No Responses »

Sep 252005

…even making artists’ brushes:

“The kolinsky is a small rodent which is found on the borders of Russia and China and its tail provides the high quality hair, soft, springy and expensive, that is used in making red sable brushes. Only the extreme tip of the tail is used in the best brushes as the hairs feather off naturally to form a point. The hairs must all be pointing in the same direction and are graded and selected before being tied together in a bunch, the longest hairs in the centre and the shorter ones ranged around it. The hairs are then glued to the ferrule. Red sable itself is also used, together with oxhair taken from the ears of certain cattle.”

– Painting in Watercolour, by Kate Gwynn

Socrates on video games

Philosophy Lite 1 Response »

Sep 132005

From “Breeding evil?” in the Aug 4th 2005 edition of The Economist:

“Scepticism of new media is a tradition with deep roots, going back at least as far as Socrates’ objections to written texts, outlined in Plato’s Phaedrus. Socrates worried that relying on written texts, rather than the oral tradition, would “create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.” (He also objected that a written version of a speech was no substitute for the ability to interrogate the speaker, since, when questioned, the text “always gives one unvarying answer”. His objection, in short, was that books were not interactive. Perhaps Socrates would have thought more highly of video games.)”

Encounter with The Fool

Philosophy Lite No Responses »

Jul 082005

Last week, somebody named “Robert” left a nondescript message (“Hello Jen, this is Robert, please give me a call…”) on my answering machine. I didn’t recognize the voice, and he didn’t say why he was calling, but I know a few R|Bobs, so I returned the call – and got his answering machine, and left a message, coda.

Yesterday, I finally got Robert on the phone.

“Hi, this is Jen – I’m returning your call.”

Silence.

Linux Format Article

Crunch Head 1 Response »

Jun 212005

Zak Greant and I wrote an article for Linux Format magazine. (Calling me a “professional open source evangelist” is an unauthorized exaggeration on the part of the magazine editors.)

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