I remember a number of years ago when I went to the UBC library in order to study. I couldn’t find what I needed at SFU’s library, and went to the UBC biomedical library instead. After studying/researching there, I went into the student union building and got something to eat. I was only there for an hour, but I had three complete strangers come up to me and strike up a conversation. I was completely blown away by this. While this sort of friendliness was not uncommon at my College, at SFU it has never happened outside of a classroom (and frequently not there either…). I have to wonder if I should have gone to UBC, and I also wonder if my reasons for not doing so were significant enough to have missed out on the experience. At the time, I had ignored ample warnings from those who had attended both SFU and UBC before, and all mentioned that I shouldn’t go to SFU. Too late now, although it is nice to not have to take a bus to my next class.

Today I heard one (of the many) theories as to why CementLand^TM is the way that it is, and why the people who trudge through its dreary interiors are the way that they are. If you are ever on a public transit bus, you may notice the flooring that they have there. Ugly, demoralizing, and non-slippery. There is a certain set of rules for acceptable behaviour on a transit bus that I have observed in my brief time that I had to ride them (1 year). Look straight ahead, avoid eye contact, and don’t talk to strangers. This is not something that you could get from, say, being on a bus for a measly week or something. It takes TIME to fully appreciate the transit experience. CementLand^TM has the exact same flooring throughout much of it. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that peoples behaviour is much the same. I have noticed that this is almost everyone’s experience at CementLand^TM, with the exception of the computer science department, which sort of contains a whole different breed of people anyway. If you think I am bitter, you should talk to the grad students. They went to a nice place to get their first degree, then they realize where they are for their Masters…

From what I understand, San Francisco has passed some sort of law to make it illegal to discriminate against fat people, the horizontally challenged…. whatever. Apparently, the whole thing began when some sort of weight loss company had a billboard with something similar to the following :

“When the aliens come, they will eat the fat ones first!”

Personally, I think that I would find this funny even if I was fat. However, I am not fat. Naturally, as with ANYTHING these days, someone took offense to this. The great interest group monster reared its ugly head once again, and now we have a law against fat discrimination in San Francisco. I am not saying that we should discriminate against fat people, but is this something that will be abused? There are jobs that “fat” people cannot do, it is just the way that it is. Does this law mean that we will start having “fat” people doing anything they want, just because firing them from such jobs would be discriminatory. What are they going to get? Fat strippers? There is always the slippery slope. Grab your toboggans.

Just one more thing. Isn’t it time people learned that lights that don’t work make the intersection a four way stop? I had to sit behind some idiot who refused to go through the intersection, even when many people had already honked, and ultimately passed them. So I waited, I honked, I waited some more. I gestured (with all my fingers). They waved, they pointed at the light, they gestured (with one finger). So I passed them. I suppose it will soon be illegal to discriminate against the stupid too.

Well, today was BIG GARBAGE DAY in Coquitlam. Obviously, an exciting event to those like myself, with nothing to do but note the mundane and frustrating around me. Actually I was surprised the amount of stuff that the garage people (or refuse engineers) wouldn’t take away. A lot of it is still left at the curb. The whole city is beginning to look like a shithole, with all the garbage at the curb. If its not bad enough that “we” throw out so much stuff, I have to wade through it everyday, look at it when I drive by, and avoid what the little high school snots have thrown all over the road. I guess I am just getting intolerant in my “old” age.

DON’T take cold beverages for granted!

Mistake Number 1 Yesterday I had the mad decision to eat some of the food that they serve at CementLand^TM. I think the correct terminology for what I consumed was LeadBread^TM and a SandMuffin^TM. Ah…. but what for a beverage…? What was interesting is not the fact that I went for the iced tea (which I seem to have a high affinity for during the last 8 months), but the fact that it was delivered to me from the dispenser HOT! HOT! I couldn’t believe it. The cup started to get warm, and I had that brief thought process that I get when sometimes I cannot distinguish between hot and cold. No, it was definitely hot, I decided. Too hot to hold onto the cup, actually. I thought, maybe they just are serving the ICED tea HOT right now. After all, this is CementLand^TM, where everything is a little “different”. There is no real reason for it, that’s just the way it is (the school motto). So I tested the Root Beer. Also hot. In fact, hotter than the ICED tea. Strange.

Mistake Number 2 So I called over someone working at this particular cafeteria and asked about the HOT ICED TEA.

Why is it hot? Last week it was ICE cold, but now its hot. Why?

-Shrug-

Do you know where I can get COLD ICED tea?

-Shrug-

Mistake Number 3 So I explained to her that its called ICED TEA for a reason. Its supposed to be COLD!!! Yes, I know that some people drink tea that is hot, but this is called ICED TEA for a reason. So she told me to add ice to it. What? Am I supposed to water down 1 inch of drink with 6 inches of ice just so I can get cold ICED TEA? I don’t think so. Not for $1.50 for a thimble full, anyway.

Then she got combative. Why is whenever I actually stand up to this kind of thing I manage to get the employee that is *this* close to snapping. She should work at the RoyalBlank. I’m even polite when I ask these question. I was just asking.

What followed was an act of complete cowardice on my part. After a brief confrontation, I actually bought the HOT ICED TEA. I figured, well, some people drink hot tea, and I happen to like hot tea, so maybe this won’t be so bad.

Mistake Number 4 I drank the HOT ICED TEA. Let me tell you, its not very good. I like normal hot tea, but this was just not a beverage that lends itself to heat.

I should have had the steaming Root Beer Instead.

I have always thought that you can figure out a lot about people by their garbage. This is not to say that I dig through other peoples garbage just to find out things about them. Why dig through garbage when you can tap phone calls, look in windows, and follow people to work? Well, so I have heard and read. This week has the exciting distinction of containing “Big garbage day” in Coquitlam, which, loosely translated, means you can haul whatever junk you want to get rid of to the curb and let the neighbors and salvage artists pick through it for a whole week before the garbage people come by to pick it up. Now I know why there were so many yard sales on the weekend (more on that particular brand of human travesty later). So if you need new furniture, say a new couch, you know where you can get a nice, used, slightly stained one. I saw a number of these today. One of them, on the side of the road, had this dog sitting on it. I presume it was his couch before it was carted to the curb, and damn if he wasn’t going to get as much use out of it before it was gone forever. I also saw a horribly stained mattress. I don’t want to know the story there. However, I did see a fantastically disfigured barbecue. The whole lid of it had melted away, and half of the wood portion of the side counter part had been burned. I DO want to know the story there. Suffice to say, it probably gave the neighbors something to talk about – and then again when the steaks finally fell from their blast induced low orbit to eventually come down into their pool, strangely enough, on the pool party day. Nothing spoils a pool party like a steak in the water.

As I mentioned, I noticed many “garage/yard/buy my junk and add it to yours” sales this weekend. The people upstairs had one, and so did many people on the road up the hill. The strange thing was, I noticed five yard sales, but the only signs for them were the ones directly in front of their houses. Why? Later on I saw this guy walking up the hill, with everyone’s yard sale signs in under one arm, and his colorful/neon signs under the other. The bastard was taking down everyone else’s signs and putting up his instead! I should have grabbed his stapler and ….. I should have run over him right then and there, so that he wouldn’t spread his genetic disposition onto progeny that would follow his lead. This kind of thing is genetic, as is the “yard sale” gene (ysg-10), and I should know, I am *this* close to a biology degree. I think this would have been virtually justifiable homicide, but I doubt the courts would agree. Perhaps I will raise this in my “Law and Psychology” class this semester.

Looking at where my hits have come from recently, I have noticed that all kinds of hits have been coming from search engines. Most of these searches have been looking for something called : “the rant” . I can only assume that this is because of the commercial of the same name (the rant). You know the one : My name is Joe and I am Canadian! Perhaps the search engines are picking up on the words “the rant” in my title, or the fact that “the rant” is actually contained on this page. I have heard many different angles on how search engines sort sites in their rankings, but one of them was the amount of times that keywords come up in the text. I suppose that meta tags do a little too… So I guess that placing the words “the” and “rant” or the phrase “the rant” in my page of rants might actually increase my hits, hypothetically. Therefore, people looking for “the rant” that was in the rant commercial might actually be picking up on “the rant” in this very sentence, or “the rant” words from my title. Of course, I am completely above placing words like “the” and rant” or the phrase “the rant” in my page that may contain a rant or two simply in order to increase my hits from people looking for “the rant”. I don’t want to start a rant here, but that sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable, and you will not find me doing such deplorable things on this page. Glad we cleared that up.

There are all nature of webpages out there on the internet (so I’ve heard…). Some of them have serious, noble intentions. Most do not. I am not quite sure where “The Daily Rant” fits in, but its certainly not at the top of the heap. When I graduated from high school, there were four websites on the internet in North America (1993). Now, I HAVE, or control, four websites myself. The internet has spawned quite the revolution in the mass production and distribution of poor spelling, bad grammar, screwed up logic, inappropriate photos, horrifically saccharine .midi songs, along with someone’s page devoted to their pet skink (I’m imagining here…). While the internet was originally created with a noble interest in communicating honorable ideas, it has since degenerated into a free for all misinformation distribution machine devoted to sex, stolen songs, pyramid schemes. This doesn’t bother me terribly. Many might consider my own website here quite the waste of time. Sometimes I do.

I do recognize that the internet has become a very good way to get your ideas out to the masses. It is also a very efficient manner in which to advertise your wedding (ouch…segue whiplash).. Take my friend’s website, www.jasonfriesen.com for example. This is a pretty good way to tell people how to get there, etc. However, it was a little unconventional in some respects…

Actually, it is quite a nice site, with a little bit of humor mixed in. This is always welcome. However, imagine my surprise when I discovered a section devoted to ME. This seemed odd. After all, this was the “Jason Friesen” website wasn’t it? Why was there a section with MY name on it? I innocently clicked on the link, expecting a link to my site or something (still had no idea why there would be one there but… whatever). Well, I didn’t exactly find a link to my site. Now, I feel that I must defend what you will find there. First of all, that is not MY picture. I have no idea who that is, only that his image will continue to haunt my dreams for quite some time! I actually found this rather amusing. Giving my phone number was a nice touch too. It became less amusing 10 minutes later, when I got a notification email from the bride telling everyone (a long list of other recipients) that the site existed. So I figured that link would disappear. It didn’t. Suddenly, this became public exposure.

The thing that bothers me the most about this was that I didn’t think of doing it to him first.

So how does one counter such a blatant bout of internet misinformation (Ive never even SEEN a sea monkey…)?? Well, look for the “Unofficial Jason Friesen Website” to be unveiled soon. I intend to have a little fun with it.

Writing this entry was a little more forced that usual. I don’t think it is one of my best. However, I do have a rather good excuse. I wrote two papers over the weekend and Monday, and I fear that all of my good sentences have left my fingertips already. Its just so bloody awful to write a paper where you have to fight for every sentence, every new idea. I have really enjoyed writing papers the entire time I have been doing them (although 4 in 5 days last semester was a little harrowing). Writing is one of the few times in my academic “career” where I can say that the effort I put in always translates into good marks. I wish exams were the same. The paper I wrote at the end of last week, the one that fought back and nearly won, was for my Environmental Physiology of Animals class. The paper was entitled: Physiological and Behavioural Adaptation to Desiccation in the Intertidal Prosobranch Gastropod Littorina. Im sure you will agree this was a most fascinating topic.

The other “paper” I wrote I did all in one day. 14 pages, excluding figures. The thing with this one was that I actually enjoyed it. The idea was to come up with all the habitat requirements of Marten (Martes americana), and decide how a fictitious valley should be logged (after saving a set amount of untouchable land) in order to protect as much of the Marten population in the valley as possible. So, what if I don’t know anything about Marten requirements or logging practices? No problem, we weren’t supposed to research it, and we were just to use our prior knowledge about wildlife requirements and ecological principles in general. Actually, coming up with theoretical ideas was really quite interesting. Certainly more interesting than parroting back research in bits and pieces in order to form a coherent mass of words. Im glad that the last paper I have to write before I graduate was an interesting one. The best ones go to the Ministry of Environment, where they will likely be ignored.

I’ve run out of words and bad ideas, so I now return you to the year 2001, already in progress….

I managed to screw up cooking in the microwave already (I only had one for about a month). I have realized both what it is like to be able to destroy your food in half the time, and what happens when you place a bowl of soup in it – complete with a spoon. Luckily I don’t seem to have the kind if microwave that reacts violently to metal objects within it. I have been known to forget that I am cooking dinner, with my back turned to the kitchen, but chances are even I would notice if my microwave went supernova with my soup spoon still inside.

I have a hotmail account, which of course means that I get a whole lot of crappy email. Some of it is much like staying up late and watching infomercials – its very stupid but you get a laugh because it is so. Most of the email is annoying – but occasionally I get something so ludicrous that its funny rather than annoying. Today I got an email entitled : Stop receiving junk email. Of course, sending such information in junk mail form sort of destroyed some of their credibility right off. Another good thing to include in an email where you intend to persuade someone to buy your product are spelling mistakes and grammatical errors:

Our advertising company would like to stop sending you unnecessary email by beconmming
aquanted with you and learning about your interests through the following survey.
Subscribe today, and you’ll receive targeted mailings that will notify you of products and
services that meet your interests. Subscribers to these free lists will receive occasional
e-mailed announcements of special offers relating to each topic subscribed!
Please take a few moments to answer the following questions about yourself.

This is a great example of the above. Not only have they misspelled acquainted and becoming, they want to end my junk emails by sending me emails of their own. Now – theres a plan!

World war III has broken out in the crisper of my fridge. Send reinforcements!

I had Japanese food for dinner on Sunday. Hey kids – can we say too much garlic? I knew you could.

Whoops, I’ve gone and done it again. Its 11:00, I’ve lost track of time once again, and I have just consumed an entire pizza. This is great – and probably indicates that I won’t get to sleep until something like 4 am. Considering I have to get up at 6:00, drive to the bottom of SFU, take the bus, go through 3 hours of class, get back on the bus, drive to Richmond (where I expect to spend a further 3-400 dollars getting my blasted car through the BC gov’t scam called airCare) and back again, and then go through another 3 hours of class – its a good thing that I won’t be getting any sleep the night before all of this.

I was standing outside the library at SFU the other day, and I noticed a young woman looking at me. She looked at me, then at papers on her clipboard, at me again, then the clipboard again. Then she waved over some other clipboard carrying guy, and then she pointed at me. They then both scrutinized the clipboard – this was getting interesting. So then the woman came over to me, and handed me a sheet. Apparently, I fit the description of extras that they wanted for a movie. I read the physical description, and I am not sure that I am flattered by any means.

Unbelievably, all of these have happened. These types of people are among those who make a trip to the grocery store infuriating, though often interesting.

1. Time for a change – this type of person slows the lineup by running back for something they forgot. They then proceed to want to chat with the clerk. When it comes time to pay (and only then), they search and search and search through their purse for change, find some, then laboriously count it out, but they don’t have enough. They then proceed to pay by cheque.

2. Sure, we’re in the 15 items or less lane, but you don’t have to physically move MY grocery items in order to count them. I want to slap your hands when they do that – but it is Iwho would be thrown out, not the obsessive compulsive item counter behind me.

3. Stand so close behind me that I can’t move backwards even slightly without bumping into you. Once this happens three or four times, I’ll do it on purpose until you back the fuck off.

4. When I ultimately ignore your inane conversation about the weather (after politely engaging it for a minute or two) I will get mad when you repeatedly tap me on the shoulder to talk to me again. I am not antisocial but…..

5. I don’t want to hear about your “beautiful” niece who can’t keep a boyfriend. No, I am not interested.

6. Point out that an item I am purchasing is something that you don’t like. I neither care nor share your opinion.

7. I get enough of an inquisition from the clerk about not having air miles – I don’t want to hear about how your friends brothers third cousin has enough points to fly to mars – and why I should have a card too.

8. Put the dividing stick down in order to encompass some of my groceries that you find interesting. Act combative when I move it.