The last vestiges of washrooms with actual paper towels in them are beginning to disappear at SFU. I really have to wonder if this is a good idea. These places are already in rather poor shape – and this isn’t something that I can blame on whoever cleans them up. But the point here is that they are installing these hot air dryer things that claim that they save trees and are sanitary. I really have to wonder about the latter. First of all, these things rarely get very hot, and imagine all the bacteria riddled water that people are flicking into these things. In a warm environment, things might grow – and when its turned on again – fling all kinds of good things upon the unsuspecting hands of those using it. Maybe I am being paranoid, maybe not. The thing is, I am allergic to all kinds of things, and I would rather deal with a running nose quickly than sniff through a lecture. So what am I supposed to do now? I hardly think that toilet paper is a good option because well…. its the same reason you aren’t supposed to keep your toothbrush in the open air of the bathroom. Of course, very few people seem to care about this.

Have you ever gone ahead and done something with the preconceived notion of what the worst possible outcome is – in order to prepare yourself for it, just in case. Also, you might be attempting to justify the action in the first place, because “How bad could it be”?. Maybe assume that everything that happens will end in death – that way I am always joyous that nobody died. If you always imagine the worst – you are more often than not happier with the actual outcome.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. Sometimes the outcome is much worse than you ever imagined, sometimes snowballing into a debacle of immense proportions. Lets use an example : Lets say that someone says to you : “I have nothing to wear”! For purposes of example, and example only, lets say that I proceeded to the closet, flung open the doors, and said : “you call this nothing to wear”. I may have even pointed out many items that I deemed no less than spectacular, and certainly worthy of wear. This is of course an……uhmm… hypothetical example – but one where you can immediately see how things became far worse than what I…. rather – the person who said this… had anticipated.

Kudos doesn’t start with a “C” does it? I have seen this in two places recently. Maybe its the ‘merican spelling?

Well, I am embroiled in another semester and these are the courses I am taking :

BISC 407 – Population Dynamics – mathematics are used to drum all the fun out of Biology. With Success!
BISC 410– Animal Behaviour – good course, but the 8:30 hour that it is offered at infringes upon my beauty sleep.
ARCH 344 – Primate Behaviour – This is a good course, taught by a Professor that is sort of famous. However, since she isn’t here, and is no longer teaching the course, and even though the replacements are competent they clearly haven’t been supplied with enough information to make this a coherent course. Kudos, SFU – on a job well bungled.
CHEM 282 – Organic Chemistry II – I thought this was a course in hieroglyphics but apparently its Organic chemistry. There isn’t a significant difference.
I saw an ad for a car today that advertised the fact that the car had new windshield wipers. WOW – new windshield wipers!!!

To the arrogant jackass who wouldn’t hire me today because I didn’t have enough computer experience : *uck YOU!! I wish that made me feel better.

I have to hand it to Chris Carter, the man behind series such as the X-files. Twice he has inserted references to two recently canceled series that were also his creations : Millennium, and Harsh Realm. While I don’t really know if Harsh Realm was a good series, Carter certainly got shafted when this series was canceled after two episodes. Millennium was a better series than the X-files, in my opinion, yet it was canceled just as it got really interesting. What I found amusing is that Carter has inserted references to both of these series on the X-files. Twice in one episode, a character was watching Harsh Realm on television and mentioned how good it was. While I don’t really care either way, I found it interesting that he would fight back after getting screwed over by Fox Television twice in one year.

There has been controversy over widening the Stanley Park causeway probably since it was first built to funnel traffic to the Lions Gate Bridge. Since I can remember, there has been outcry – but public and governmental – that basically concerns itself with the loss of trees from Stanley Park. I consider myself to be concerned with the environmental issues of this region, but I just cannot understand why we must whine and bemoan the loss of only around 50 trees in order to widen the causeway from from 2.9 to 3.5 meters (which would significantly aid traffic flow and increase safety). Everyone seems terribly concerned with the loss of these trees – yet I don’t hardly ever hear complaints about the disappearing trees on the North Shore mountains. I haven’t lived all that long, and have been cognizant of housing issues in West and North Vancouver only in the past few years. Even in this time period – I have noticed that the altitude to which the housing on the mountains has risen to is starting to destroy the view that Vancouverites brag about. This goes for Port Coquitlam as well. I hardly think that the lost of a few trees and the highly subjective “lessening” of the beauty of Stanley Park can compare to the malignant-like spread of housing development up the skyline of the North Shore.

Another thing that has been bothering me lately is the handling of the fast ferries in BC. If you don’t know anything about this – 1) take the most irresponsible scenario you can think of concerning a government building faster ferries – 2) double the intensity of the incompetence of your scenario. To list all the infractions and truly stupid events concerning the building of these ships – well SFU only gives me 50 megs of webspace – and even that is truly inadequate to even list (much less discuss) all the incompetence concerning these floating disaster areas.

I don’t understand the outcry concerning the possibility of government aid to Canadian NHL teams either. At first I thought – HEY! – shouldn’t we be spending this on the already troubled health care system? How many industries that are both poorly, and well run have been given government aid in order to help them? I can only imagine the Billions that have been given to help companies in Canada. IF you consider that there is a federal minister of a ministry called “Canadian Heritage that gives money to crappy artists, musicians, and other things deemed to fall under the Heritage/Cultural category. I just have to think that something as Canadian as Hockey would be more important than other things that money is indiscriminately thrown at under the guise of “Heritage”.

Lets say that the 6:00 news runs two stories at the beginning of their broadcast. The first is about the terrible abuse suffered by a young child at the hand of its “parents”. The second is about the neglect of a dog in the Fraser Valley. Lets say that both stories are followed by soliciting of public money to help those afflicted by such terrible circumstances. I will bet that there will be response to the abused child, as there certainly should be. I will also bet that the amount of sympathetic response to the dog story will be much more rigorous, and that financial donations will exceed that of the abused child. What is wrong here? The outcry that I hear concerning abuse of animals is certainly justified, but I don’t think that it is warranted considering the virtual ignorance that those people often have towards child abuse. I don’t see this as having our priorities straight, but maybe thats just me.

I talked to somebody the other day who suggested that stupidity should be painful. I heartily agree. This way, you could see the “stupid” coming, and avoid interaction unless absolutely necessary. Of course, this would make doing anyting related to SFU’s administration uncomfortable to be around (even more than now).

I remember when school strikes were something that I looked forward to in elementary and secondary school. In University, this has changed considerably, especially since it might happen during midterms. I can only imagine the carnage that this would cause.

I dont’ mind watching basketball on tv, as long as I am doing something else at the same time. What makes it almost unbearable is when VTV interviews drunken idiots watching the game in a bar. Who really cares what the hell they think – and they do this during seemingly every pause in the game. VTV is why they invented the mute button.

Drugs have introduced the metric system to a whole new generation of Americans.

I think that the science has incorporated itself into my mind so much that when I look at the following picture I can only think of one thing: Myelin sheath. If you don’t know what that means – you’re not missing much.

Today I had the good fortune to have to take a “library information” session. We went to the library, and we learned how to look up all sort of books and journals and stuff. I cannot overemphasize the complete waste of time that this was. This was a FOURTH year science course, BISC 410 – Animal Behaviour. You would think that they would assume we knew how to use a damn library by now. This is the sort of thing that I learned after about a month of being at SFU – and without any library tutorial.

Why is it that whenever you put a spoon in the sink – it will automatically position itself under the tap such that when you turn on the tap water will spray everywhere. I want to know.

Today I went to my first lecture of Archeology 344 (Primate behaviour). First lectures are not normally eventful situations, with the exception of the one a few years ago that ended up with me in an ambulance headed towards the hospital, but that story is already on record here. Today, was also an event, although not as dramatically so. The prof decided that we should all introduce each other to the class, which is something that I have previously only seen in tutorials. Some people immediately fled. Introducing yourself to those who don’t care is not a particularly interesting endeavor either in tutorial, or a lecture with approximately 80 people in it. How many times can you hear : “My name is **** and I am a *th year student, my major is ***** and I took this course because………” without being disinterested. So I get up there. “My name is Mike”, which was immediately followed by a metallic crash, followed by audible expletives in my direction from the girl next to me, and then the one in front of me (though not as audible). It seems that I managed to knock over the coffee of the person next to me, dumping it in her lap, all over my feet, and splashing it onto the girl ahead of her. The first thing I notices was the classes reaction, and then remembered that coffee is very hot. Very hot. I need not point out that this really, really, sucked.

Perhaps now is an appropriate time to point out that the number one fear that people report is public speaking. The second is death. So at a funeral, we would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.

Recently I botched a batch of ice cream I was making. Apparently, attempting to make a batch of ice cream the day after the previous on does not allow for the freezer unit to refreeze enough. Fortunately, the real ramification of this is that the ice cream separates as it freezes. Milkshake time! Blending the whole mass together and adding something else is the only way to make it edible again – and this works fine. Unfortunately this requires a blender.

It isn’t as though I have a poor track record with blenders, its that the lack of experience can raise the possibility of problems. So I mixed, I blended, I added strawberries, I blended some more, and all I got out of it was sticky dogs. Let me explain, lest you jump to conclusions. My parents blender has, uhmmm, idiosyncrasies, which is normal since it lives in that house. I should point out at this time that I don’t live in that house. The glass “body” of the blender connects to a base, which connects to the plug in part of the blender (these technical terms are making my head spin). To make a long story short, if you lift off the glass part of the blender it separates from the base, and there is no containment for the contents of the blender body at this point. Therefore, my ice cream makes a rapid, immediate exodus from the blender, with gravity being the operative word. Imagine approximately 1.5 Liters of ice cream/strawberry milkshake cascading over the counter, down the cupboard doors, and right upon the hapless dog below. A sticky dog is not a happy dog. I was not amused either.

I’m seriously contemplating complaining about the heat situation in my suite. I keep having to run my hands under hot water in order to “de-numb” them so that I can type. Brrrrr!

On Monday I had the pleasure of sitting in my car for about 2 hours waiting for traffic to move. This is usually a 12 minute drive, and needless to say I was pretty peeved about getting to SFU at around 10:00 when I left close to 8:00. What was the problem? It seems that as soon as a little snow hits Vancouver, everybody turns into complete wimps when it comes to driving. Now, I would rather have this than have everybody drive really fast and have lots of accidents, but please – the way to go down a small hill when its snowy is to go down it!!! Don’t linger at the top wondering wondering if its a good idea. I target this at the guy driving the huge Winnebago who wanted to do a uturn, and not having enough room for this, chose to just sit there.

Another thing is that while SFU did an admirable job in keeping their roads clear on the mountain, Burnaby is responsible for everything until 3/4 of the way up. This means, if you aren’t familiar with driving to SFU in the winter, that the first 3/4 of the mountain road receives no attention at all from sand/salt/plowing. Needless to say, this really sucks when you are trying to get to class on time, or when you are one of the approximately 70 people trapped on the crappy articulated buses that Translink chooses to run up snowy mountains. These things cannot do the job when its snowy.

Looks like we are going to have about 10-12 centimeters of snow overnight. This normally wouldn’t bother me, but with Monday as my prevailing memory of driving in the snow with idiots, I’m not looking forward to my 8:30 in the morning class.

1. Ask the guest a question that he/she has frequently been quoted as saying they don’t want to talk about. This isn’t something I would apply to a political guest on a talk show (they deserve to be badgered). Once the guest (lets hypothetically say an author:) states that he or she doesn’t want to talk about it, keep asking asinine questions and dwell on the topic for at least five minutes afterward.
2.  Know nothing about the topic you are quizzing them about.
3. Take everything the guest says, and mix it up and regurgitate it to the audience in your own words.
4. Talk about the millennium.
5. Be ignorant about what your guest is here to promote.
6. Get the worst host that the radio station has to do the interview.
7. Sensationalize your questions whenever possible.
8. Pretend to know what the hell you are doing.
9. Call the book a movie when it really is a book. Ooops.

Today I got home from a trip to the grocery store and walked in my door. I thought : “Oh no! my place has been ransacked”! Then I remembered that was the way that I left it. What a relief!

It took me well into November to reliably write 1999 (and not 1998), both on notes I take at school and these things here in the web. That was only changing 1 digit. Now I have to change four, which should take a while for me to remember. I wonder how long it will be before I write 1999 on one of these updates.

This year, for probably only the second time in the last 10 years, I had a great New Years Eve (though surreal). I tried to roll over while a cat was on top of me, and apparently claws are the way that cats react to that. Oh look – visitors/climbing toys!