Or maybe it is.  Cliche preamble: “Oh my; I sure have gone a long time without updating this blog”.

See, I have been working full-time while attending UBC full time.  All work and more work = no time for leisurely blogging about extracurricular, non-academically focused topics.

I have started another blog, Really Awesome Blog Comments, which is sporadically updated as I come across real gems in the comment sections of the blogs or news story that I read regularly.

Otherwise, maybe I should write in this more.

Oh yeah.  You know what’s great about being a sociology major who feels like she no longer has a family (though does have individual associations with people of whom she is biologically related)?  Well, sociological theories are a great source of enlightenment, and almost cheer me up when I am on the verge of being awash with angsty emotions.   For example,  re-framing “family” as merely a social construct makes the realization that I am less a part of what I thought was my family than I ever was, while non-biological people I have never met have replaced me, seem much less painful.  That statement may seem harsh, but I’d rather feel enlightened making sense of changes in family structures than feel bitter about those changes.

Complimenting family as a social construct is the observation of how relationships exist amongst people with independent (as opposed to interdependent) self concepts. At 4:09 am, I am a bit too tired to go into detail, and risk plagiarizing a really great paper, so you can read it here, courtesy of the good old University of British Columbia.

Raymond Carver, an author whose work I am not too fond of, does a nice job at illustrating the emotional strain between wanting to believe that love is real and eternal, while facing the reality of knowing how transactional relationships really are:

“You’ve both been married before, just like us. And you probably loved other people before that too, even. Terri and I have been together five years, been married for four. And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, you might say, is that if something happened to one of us—excuse me for saying this—but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think the other one, the other person, would grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, and have someone else soon enough. All this, all of this love, we’re talking about, it would be just a memory.” (Carver, 1981 — “What we talk about when we talk about love”)

The above passage is referring to romantic relationships, but it can be applied to any type of relationship. I love my brothers; I love my mom; I love my late father, but we are not a family anymore.  Once we were a family, but we no longer are (unless you want to get all Slaughterhouse Five on the linearity of our lifetimes).  Yeah, it’s painful to think about sometimes, but at least I have silly abstract theories to comfort myself with, right?

Goodnight. Good morning.

I’m in my house right now in Toronto.

There is so much strain between me on the west coast, and me in Toronto.

I sometimes toy with the idea of moving back here, because I really do miss the familiarity.

I keep going back to this topic from Urban Geography, which was the most abstract dimension — the sense of place. Other dimensions include production, reproduction and…. I forget. I had this essay question on an exam which asked me to explain my sense of place in Vancouver.  I couldn’t.  I had just come back from visiting Toronto for the first time in two years and described how simple things like seeing streetcars and my familiarity with the most simple, originally subconscious, attachments I have to this city made me realize my “place”, and how Toronto is my place.  In contrast, aside from my house, itself, I don’t feel like I have the same sense of place in Vancouver.

Home is where you choose to make it, and I have been trying to make Vancouver my home.

Being in Toronto is nice, but it’s really hard on me, because I miss the past, and still can’t accept that the past will never be the present again.

Conversely, In Vancouver, I don’t have a past that is holding me back, but that lack of past sometimes leaves me empty.

The title of this blog post is the name of a  film that I watched in my Urban Geography course this evening.  As far as I know, I’ve been living under a rock and everyone else has known about this documentary (made in 2004) except for me.  I had always been disenchanted by the Al Gore/Inconvenient Truth/Oil Oil Oil conspiracy stuff that has been going on for the last many years.  It’s not that I am ignorant, or against it — I just haven’t been too interested in getting all militant and obsessed about oil as some people have.  Anyway…

We watched this film in class. I would recommend people view “The Depletion of Oil and the Collapse of the American Dream”, not because I agree or disagree with its content, but because it had some thought provoking qualities.   The most impressive part about the documentary was just how prophetic it was.  Several scientists and academics make some predictions, which at the time seem unbelieveable to a global society so uneducated about what keeps their livelihoods from falling apart; and these predictions, for the most part, occurred — often, impressively, at the dates predicted.

People make predictions all the time.  I think when most predictions turn out to be fact, people are mildly entertained, or just neutral, or unaware.  Other times, obviously, the predictions are incorrect.  What stands out about what these people claimed would happen, is that they were predicting the equivilent of an apocalypse.  The inability to satisfy an overwhelming and exponential “need” for oil, for consumption, for a chaos theory kind of mob-mentality, consuming behaviour, means the death of a life that recent generations [from certain countries] feel entitled to, and inevitably leads to the loss of social cohesion and norms.  Most of the speakers in this film didn’t go so far as to predict a dissolution of any sort of social contract, but they do insinuate it.

So, pretty crazy stuff.

What I did take issue with, is that this film is, as can be expected, one-sided.  Obviously a film that is attempting to plead, intelligently, to the public, and to the slightly-above-layman audience that it needs to collectively WAKE THE FUCK UP and change if you want your children to see tomorrow is not going to present a lot of counter-arguments.  Fair enough.  I think anyone intelligent enough to watch this film (it’s pretty easy to follow, but not for Cletus) with an open mind can understand that it is one sided, and has a clear agenda.

Having said that, I study arts and social sciences.  I consider myself adequately educated in these areas, and can understand concepts.  However, I do not understand much about physical sciences; so, when the scientists in this film say that it takes more energy to create hydrogen power than it does to use it, or that such and such uses up so much oil, or that something is scientifically ineffecient, that isn’t good enough for me.  I would like, at least, a brief background to explain to the uneducated viewer in me: “this is why this is like THIS”.  It is important to recognize your audience, and this film obviously was not made for scientists.  If this film had been made for scientists, I would not have understood half of what was in it (or any of it?)  This film was made for people like me, like the general audience I referred to above, and most of us are not highly educated about these topics.  This film is like “Oil Mear-Mongering 101″, which is why it is so easy to watch.

Bottom few lines: Movie:

-interesting and thought provoking. Check it out!

- freakishly prophetic

- lacked empirical data for the physical scientifically uneducated geek in me.

Good night.

Hello Internets,

In contrast to recent discussions of dystopian cities of Gamblor and my disdainful fascination with the mainstream media’s coverage of various phenomena, I would like to “plug”, if you will, a website/blog/podcast.

Some fine gentlemen in Toronto, Tim (and contributing geek, Brad) have a blog called “Comma Error”.  Tim has done a bunch of reviews of recent video games, and dude knows his video game shit.  Tim and Brad also have started doing a podcast, which is pretty entertaining.  So check it out.

Also, now I shall plug myself, for the millionth time today: plug plug plug. For those who haven’t heard me brag about something that isn’t totally extraordinary:  I was accepted into UBC today and offered the President’s Entrance Scholarship.  It’s nothing too fancy; just based on academic merit, but I am still stoked.  I still have someone else’s money paying for my schooling, as a recognition of my brain power.  Woooooooo.

I got my Geography midterm back today.  I got an A.  I would have gotten an A+, but I only got 1.5 out of 4 marks on the map questions. BRUTAL.  Could you pick out Fort St. John, Campbell River, Nelson, the Kootenay River, Kelowna, the Nass River, Barkerville and Prince Rupert on a blank map of B.C. with about 100 different dots to choose from? If you hail from the Centre of the Universe like I do, probably not.  I came close.  Close isn’t good enough for geography.

Oh.. and on question 24 of the multiple choices, I dyslexically picked the wrong answer, but I did not contest it… really. My saving grace was that I totally owned the two essay questions, which were worth 14 out of a possible 30 points.  I got 13/14 (6.5/7 for each essay….) Ironically, the two topics that I have to write about were the  topics I was least prepared for…

Midterm = 30% of the mark; Research paper (due in 3 weeks… yikes) = 30% of the mark; final exam = 30% of the mark, and participation = 10% of the mark. So I am pretty confident I can maintain an A in this class.
I also got my Creative Writing portfolio back.  I only got a B+ (worth 20% of my mark).  I completely know why I got a B+, which is that my last piece in it was very weak. But I was well aware of that when I handed it in.  My instructor, who had initially been very harsh to me, said he “like [my] work” I had done on a series of pieces, and that he liked what I had to say about drugs, hospitals, rape and… get this… MY MOM. (That’s right mom… there’s one that mentions you..)

That B+ is okay because I got an A on a group project I did about a little magazine (also worth 20% of my mark…); I should be getting an A on my crits (10% of the mark); I have a presentation on Monday, which I am confident I will get an A in (20%)… Aand my final portfolio, worth 30%, I think I can garner an A.  Am I cocky? No. Just focused… and working hard, even if it seems like I’m slacking off.  Remember, I have 1 day of class per week, so I do have a fuckload of free time now that I’m unemployed.

With my 1200$ grant on the way (thank goodness I contacted Financial Aid to make sure they were still sending it to me), I don’t even need to have a part time job right now, so I’ll probably wait until I get back from Florida to get one…unless something cool comes up.

Di I say I was focused? Okay, that’s actually BULLSHIT AT THE MOMENT.   My Ritalin ceased to function a couple of weeks ago, and I had  to get my new, higher-dosage prescription mailed to me from Toronto (controlled substances bullshit.  I’m not explaining…). Finally, two weeks or so later, it has arrived.  I was fine for writing my midterm last week, apparently.

It didn’t arrive soon enough for me to take it before going to class today, so by the time 5:30 PM rolled around an Geogs  (English is 1:30-5:20had started, I was pretty fidgety.  By 6:30, I couldn’t concentrate on a single thing. I knew if I could stick it out until the coffee break I’d be fine.  Normally that’s at 7:00.  It was at 7:30 today.  I felt like I was going to die.  Ever had an ADD moment that was so… well, ADD, that you were on the verge of having a panic attack from being intensely incapable of concentrating on any one thing for more than like 30 seconds?

As soon as the break came I told the prof I was not well and had to leave… he knows I’m fucked in the head cause of the letter  from the disability department at school.

Now I just need to write some more stupid poems, go to a stupid poetry reading on Thursday, do a stupid presentation about said stupid poetry reading and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah stupid stupid stupid stupid.  I’m smart, eh.

At work I sometimes get bored and read stuff on Craigslist.  I am also going to need to get a new job, as my contract expires in Mid-October; I will only be attending class on Mondays, so will get bored.  I will also need money, as it turns out the government has once again penetrated my sweet ass and told me “you will need to wait a long bloody time before you receive the money you so dearly need.”

 I digress.

I was on Craigslist looking at prospective jobs and saw a posting looking for a blogger.  Now, I would never submit myself to such a “profession”, as I find the idea of being a “professional blogger” tacky.  It also is no way to earn a living, unless you are like Oprah, I guess.

There was an ad which made me chuckle — a lot.  The ad is as follows:

“Looking for a blogging person to write blog posts about birds, birding and backyard birding. Must have some interest in birds and be able to write and talk about it.

Each blog post will be between 200-400 words and talk on birding. Also must have some interest in binoculars as some of the posts will be referencing binoculars.

You will need to write 3-4x’s blog posts per week and upload the information. If you have never uploaded anything don’t worry apply anyway. It is simple and we will show you how.

Each post will be $8 CAD but will have the opportunity to write more and increase the amount of pay as time goes on. Payment will be paid thru PayPal. ”

 I guess when you are very bored at work, this is much funnier than in real life.  I think if you have an interest in writing, this peculiar ad is also quite funny.  I think the use of alliteration in the ad must have been purely accidental, because only a used car salesperson would otherwise use such language.

I understand that this is just a “fun”, shot-in-the-dark game, requiring little mental intelligence or dedication in order to win, but there is another side to it. (Also, I don’t want to get stupid Facebook messages every day telling me to get more of my completely uninterested friends to join your damn group.)

First off, what this type of “contest” results in is people trying to recruit their acquaintances to Facebook in order to help them win: You’re so preoccupied with your hoop dream chance of winning 7000$ that you forgot that what you are actually doing is PROMOTIONS FOR TWO ALREADY WELL-ESTABLISHED AND PROFITABLE BUSINESSES. You are doing this for free. By having a contest of this nature, Edge 102.1 and Facebook save a lot of money that they could be spending to market themselves in other ways. Is consumer marketing ethical anyway? That is not the issue which I am addressing, so I don’t care to discuss it right now. Regardless, you are performing tasks at no charge which companies would normally spend money on. It’s like paying to buy a Nike shirt. You are paying to advertise for Nike; you are donating your time to promote the Edge and Facebook via your plea to others in helping you win 7000$

From the contest info at edge.ca:

“Invite as many people as possible to join your group. Close friends, friends of friends, family, old school buddies, neighbors you don’t even speak to, ANYONE!!! You won’t qualify to win $7,000 unless you are near the top of the leaderboard when it comes to how large your group is, so friends are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!”

As a result of you promoting The Edge or Facebook for free, there is a chance that a few, several, or a great many people who would normally not use Facebook, or the Facebook groups feature, will be logging in and checking the page regularly due to their enthusiasm towards helping you win. How does the commercial media, whether it be the traditional mass media, or the new media, earn profits? Pat yourself on the back if you guessed “from selling space to advertisers.” Just as commercial TV shows are developed in order to attract the highest paying advertisers, quasi-commercial websites are developed in order to attract the highest paying advertisers. How do you get a client to pay more to advertise on your space? By guaranteeing a high amount of viewers or users, of course.

As outlined in the following passage from Facebook’s privacy policy, Facebook has the right to collect information about its members in order to help achieve the maximum effectiveness of its advertisements. What this means is that if I have 3000 people in my group, and 80% list themselves as enjoying Jack Johnson or some shit, and 75% love to watch Survivor, this is information obtained which would normally require the less cost-efficient method of market research in order to develop such a profile of Edge 102 listeners and Facebook users. This means average ages, educational statuses, locations, political affiliations and many other demographics are so easily obtained. Then the Edge and Facebook can go laughing to the bank upon learning which companies are surefire choices to attract as future clients:

Advertisements that appear on Facebook are sometimes delivered (or “served”) directly to users by third party advertisers. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. These third party advertisers may also download cookies to your computer, or use other technologies such as JavaScript and “web beacons” (also known as “1×1 gifs”) to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. Doing this allows the advertising network to recognize your computer each time they send you an advertisement in order to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. In this way, they may compile information about where individuals using your computer or browser saw their advertisements and determine which advertisements are clicked.

I hope I am not the only person who realizes how painfully obvious this is. 7000$ is no skin off of either company’s back. I will not join your stupid group.

Move along.

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

Not a walrus:

Walrus

Walrus

Walrus

That is actually a ring-tailed lemur.  Not a walrus.

Zoology 101.

Steven pulled the best Poisson d’Avril on us. I fell for it. I am so gullible. It’s ironic, because I called him up this morning to get him to Fool Garry for me:

Last night a bunch of us went to see Jamus’s band, Cosmedic. At the Pic, this doodbox hit on me. I was quite amused. His name was Tommy. My friend Josh suggested I “go back home with him to Surrey.” For those of you not familliar with Vancouver, Surrey is effectively Vancouver’s Scarborough.

Anyway, I crashed at Kerby’s house.. so this morning I called Steven and told him to pretend I had called asking if he knew any numbers for Surrey cab companies, as I had gone home with Tommy. Steven hails from Surrey[ EDIT: WHITEROCK, NEAR SURREY], you see; this is why I would asked such a thing from Steven.

So knowing that Steven was clearly aware of what day it was, when I saw that sign up on our board, I kind of freaked out. Then I read further down and realized it was fake. One of the reasons for our eviction is “being from Toronto”. Another reason is something about arty farty party stuff. And homosexual activity.

I have not yet finished my essay. It is due in 25.5 hours.