Postcards from my Brain

This is why we do it!

2006-09-24T16:38:00.000-04:00

Triumphant.JPG
Originally uploaded by Mark Rutley.

Race day. The morning began at 0500 hrs (Oh my Gawd, that's early!). We rolled out of bed, drank our coffee and had our wheaties, then headed down to the race venue with our pit crew (Mom, Mary and Kim). There were 10,000 runners at the starting line! We spent much of the pre-race warm up time waiting for a porta-potty.

Business complete, a cheer went up and we were off! 22.1 km later the result is here. We were both shooting for a sub-2 hour time. Alas, it was not to be. Still Cindy managed a 02:07 min time and I pulled out a 02:05 min time. All in all a good run.

Beat the Morning Commute

2006-09-22T08:29:00.000-04:00

Beat the morning commute
Originally uploaded by Mark Rutley.

Tired of your morning/evening commute? Feel you're spending too much time in stop-and-go traffic that only lives up to half of its name? Is the irony of "rush hour" depressing you? Then get a CF-5 and make your commute fun again! :)

Why are we doing this again?

2006-09-19T10:17:00.000-04:00

As most of you know, Cin and I are abusing our bodies this Sunday, 24 Sept in the Toronto Waterfront ½ Marathon. It’s an early start. The race begins at 0700 hrs (can I get enough coffee into my system by then?). ½ marathon front-runners are expected to finish at 0800, right behind The Flash (Faster than 10 fast men!). Cin and I hope to come in sometime around 0900 hrs. There’s going to be some big names at this marathon/½ marathon including; Simon Bor – fastest Kenyan in the race; the Joggler – a guy who runs the entire marathon while juggling(!); and Ed Whitlock, a 74 year old who can run a marathon in a little over 3 hours. Here’s a map and elevation of the race venue. Also there’s official “Oasis Neighbourhood Challenge” entertainment/cheering sites along the route where spectators can be entertained as they watch or await the runners.

So if you’d like to come out, cheer us on, and have some fun. Hope to see you there!

2006-09-18T23:27:00.000-04:00

Test2

HTML Test. Google

Further to my last..

2006-09-18T16:41:00.000-04:00

Some more details on the blurry Avro Arrow pic in the previous post. The aircraft is a full sized replica at the Toronto Aerospace Museum and was built by 140 volunteers over the last 8 years. It is an exact replica of one of the Arrows and will be available for public viewing on 8 Oct. I’ve walked past this thing and saw it up close during one of my commutes from work. It’s a truly impressive replica which does the builders proud. Here's a press release on the subject.

Avro Arrow Lives Again

2006-09-18T11:52:00.000-04:00

Avro Arrow Lives Again
Originally uploaded by Mark Rutley.

The Avro Arrow is a landmark in Canadian history - either famous or infamous depending on the version of history you subscribe to. Regardless a mock-up of this most magnificent of Canadian interceptors has just been rolled out of it's hanger across the airfield from me. What a beautiful machine!

Poor photo, I know. I'll see if I can get a better one on the way home.

Test Successful!

2006-09-17T17:51:00.000-04:00

Flowers from our Garden
Originally uploaded by Mark Rutley.

So. It's been a while. Never was very good at that whole "persistence" thing. I've got about 15 stories - great ideas all - 3/4 finished.

Now however, I've got a new trick up my sleave. I can send photos from my new nokia, via bluetooth to my Tapwave Zodiac, edit an email in Snappermail, attach the photo, send the email back out through the Nokia to flickr, and on to my blog. Complete with text. I agree, it's a rather cumbersome method, especially considering the somewhat ubiquitousness of computers and wifi hotspots in Canada. But I've recently suffered through the demise (AGAIN!) of my so-called "hardened" tablet PC (a Hammerhead XRT) and so am resorting to the much more durable, and eminantly more portable, Zod/Phone combination.

Plus with my data plan from Fido, no matter where I am in the world (and I do travel a fair bit) I can continue to post either text or photos to this blog as I see fit.

So, the inaugaral post - some beautiful flowers from the garden of my wife and a enduring wish for increased patience on behalf of civilizations everywhere.

-M

Dawn of the Dead...Cat fuel.

2005-09-15T05:08:00.000-04:00

I feel a rant coming on. Probably my cold... But:

Every day convinces me more and more that the world is on crack. For instance, some guy in Germany is now making bio-diesel fuel from dead cats . While I aplaud the resourcefulness of this guy in using home-brew bio-diesel for his car, I can't help but feel there is a better solution to high-gas pump woes. At least he's trying to reduce his footprint, however untasteful it may be (unlike people who drive these monstrosities). But then, I'm a bit of a "crank" when it comes to transportation. If you HAVE to drive a car (which I'm not at all convinced that we all need to), surely there are better ways of creating bio-diesel. For instance, how about using waste grease from Ye-Ol'-Fast-Food-Chain. Or do like Willie Nelson and grow it. And what will happen to this German guy's ability to make fuel if people actually took responsibility for their pets and had them properly spayed or neutered, and restricted their outdoor wanderings the way they should be? Why, he'll need to find some other source of animal grease. You can see where this is leading can't you...

Edit: But then, what's the difference between using animal parts for fuel, and using them for art (from the always interesting BoingBoing).

The Great Walk

2005-04-11T07:50:00.000-04:00

(Note: Some artistic license taken in telling this tale).

So a few weeks back, our neighbours Rob, Karen and their kid, Ed, decided to go for a walk with us. The weather was beautiful - warm spring sunshine and just a slight breeze to keep you cool. The birds were singing merrily. And especially unusual for the UK, not a rain cloud to be had. At 11:30 we set off, strolling amiably along the country roads here in Quorn. Rob and I generally walked up front, commenting in a generally manly way about things generally manly (such as the miracle that is whiskey, the war in Iraq and which of the four Aliens movie was better). Cindy and Karen were usually some ways back, for they were wont to stop occasionaly and critique somebody's garden, or admire a very picturesque house. Or I suppose simply because their legs were shorter than ours, and we didn't much bother to wait for them. Ed spent his time harrowing back and forth between the two groups, using a small tree to save us from all manner of orcs, goblins and dragons (complete with sound effects), and occasionaly giving one of us an accidental but good-natured clout on the back of the head.

Our route took us along several of what I consider to be Englands greatest invention - the Public Rights-of-Way. These are public footpaths that have existed for centuries, and likely were the original paths people used to get from town to town back in the days when a fast horse was considered the maximum speed humans could travel and remain alive. In modern days, the Brits continue to use these paths, and if the path crosses right through the middle of some farmer's field, the farmer is obligated BY LAW to ensure the path remains clear and usable. This could mean going so far as to build bridges over streams, stiles over fences, and posting "Warning, don't cross this field unless you can do it in 9 seconds. The bull can do it in 10," signs where appropriate.

The nice thing about modern public rights-of-way is that they are all fully mapped and documented. And they are so extensive that with the right maps you could walk from say, Nether Wallop down by Salisbury (the place with the giant domino set) all the way up to Brawl on the Northern coast of Scotland (I just LOVE British names) without once setting foot on anything other than grass, cow dung or pub flooring.

The first thing we saw as we set foot on the path was a man coming the other way. He had a compass draped around his neck, and clipped to the left strap of his backpack was a GPS unit. On it's screen we saw a small rendition of a public right-of-way map with the present position clearly labeled, along with his total distance traveled in miles, average speed, last waypoint, next waypoint, an arrow constantly pointing toward home, and pre-programmed points of interest. Rob and I watched him amble past, as he occasionaly cross-referenced his compas against his GPS unit. We glanced at each other, rolling our eyes in a manly way to indicate our disdain for his reliance on technology. Why, it's a path. It only goes two ways. And anyway, how hard is it to see things. Climb a good hill and you can see every village for miles around. With a snicker, we turned and ambled on.

The man was soon forgotten, replaced with a fascination for the scenery around us. As you wander in Britain, you come accross some amazing and oft-ignored historical places. Places that if they were in Canada would have "Place of Historical Interest" signs pointing to them from all over (such as the infamous Buffalo Rubbing Rock just outside Cutknife Saskatchewan. Where for centuries, mighty, 1000 strong herds of buffalo used to migrate for miles over windswept, long grass prairie just to ease the itching on their butts). We passed the ruins of a windmill left over from the 1700's. Off in the distance you can see what is left of John's Tower, an abandoned medieval keep. And isn't that the ghostly outline of a bronze age hill fort?

As well, the places don't have to be all that old to be picturesque. We passed a water purification plant and reservoir built in Victorian times, complete with ornate wrought iron bridges, the occasional small gargoyle, stone pagodas, and beautiful brick sewer outlets. The type of water treatment facility that I would be happy to drown in ("Wow, now that I've sunk to the bottom I can really admire the beautiful and finely crafted brickwork of this reservoir."). And what is truly amazing is that the plant is still in use by Trent-Severn Water. We stood and watched a fully functional, passenger-carrying steam train chuff it's way from around a bend and under the bridge we were on, enveloping us in a cloud of steam and coal dust. It's as if the residents of portions of England simply said, "Okay, that's enough with the progress thing. We'll just stop right about here."

Onward again, stopping for a snack in the graveyard of an 18th century church (yes we did pack the food in, not spades). Then a bit further down the road, and our thirst was slaked with fine pints of Ale in the Griffin Pub. Then on the move again, this time picking a trail we thought would lead us back to Quorn. We ambled and talked as the shadows grew longer, occasionally ducking under Ed's tree which he was still twirling enthusiastically in our defense.

We were halfway across a farmer's field when I realized two things:

a) It was getting dark.

b) I really had no idea where we were.

A quick consultation was in order. I turned to Rob next to me, "You reckon we're getting close to Quorn," I asked in as manly a manner as I could, images of the Hound of the Baskervilles flashing through my mind. Quickly followed by an image of a GPS unit with a pre-loaded foot trail map.

He looked at me, then looked into the gloaming around us. "Bloody 'ell, I'm not sure." We peered around, searching for something familiar while Ed's tree whizzed between us. Off in the next field a cow regarded us with solemn eyes, chewing with mildly curious contentment. Karen and Cindy ambled up.

"D' ye figure Quorn is that way," Rob asked, indicating the chosen direction to Karen with a jut of of his goatee.

Karen contemplated the far-off hill on that bearing, then spun a complete circle. "I thought it was over there," she said, pointing to the left.

"Well, we've made a couple of lefts and a right just after that last stile two fields back," Cindy put in. "So it should be this way." And she indicated the opposite direction.

"My gut tells me it's this way," I said, pointing down the path we were on.

We stood there, the four of us peering hopefully in four different directions. Ed smote a dragon. The cow took another bite.

"Well, perhaps we should just carry on in the direction we were going, and hope we fetch up somewhere close to Quorn. I mean, how far can it be," Rob said.

I glanced at my watch. We'd been walking for 4 hours. We journeyed on, in much the same order but now with a bit more alacrity in our steps.

"Wherever we're going, we're making good progress," I said in an attempt to be cheery. Afterall, it had been a great walk. I got no response. Ed's tree whirled dangerously close to the back of my head.

After a short period we came across a public bridal path, which looked like it went in the right direction, meaning that it split the difference between all the various directions we had each picked. Plus it ran downhill, which was the clincher. With these unassailable arguments as guidance, we decided to take it, and set off in this new direction. After some time, the bridal path made an abrupt u-turn around the base of a farmer's field, then petered out to nothing. We stood at it's tip, like shipwrecked sailors peering over a darkening sea in the hope of sighting succor. Visions of GPS's danced in my head.

"Say, isn't that a foot path sign over there," I said.

"Where," Cindy replied, bleering into the darkness.

"There," I pointed. "By that hedge. See it? A little flash of yellow? Green foot?"

"Looks like it."

We trooped over, gathering around the footpath sign and examining first one way, then the other. Eventually, we decided that downhill was still a good direction, and turning right, marched on. We'd now been walking for 5 and a half hours.

Sometime later, we arrived at a major road. We assessed our situation, then took the obvious choice, turned left and started downhill. Two hours, four roads, one footpath and a very passionate and manly discussion about Pizza later, we finally arrived back in Quorn. It was getting true dark now, with stars twinkling on in the sky.

And as we limped into town - dusty, muddy, with legs aching from walking for 7 hours, Ed's tree making a pathetic bump-bump-bump sound dragging along the sidewalk behind us - we passed the White Horse Pub. There, seated comfortably inside, his back pack, compass and GPS beside him, was the man we had passed almost 7 hours previously. He saw us outside, nodded his head and smiled. Then, as Rob and I watched with desperate envy, lifted what appeared to be his third pint of cellar-cooled, golden-red bitter, and took a long, loving swallow. The glass lowered, and with a look of utter satisfaction, he wiped the foam from his upper lip.

Rob and I quietly hated him. Then turned and limped our way home in as manly a manner as we could.

Ah, Venice

2005-04-11T07:30:00.000-04:00

My wife and I recently took a trip to Venice (and I must say, if you ever get the chance to go there, go! It's truly an amazing city). We were enthralled and spent three days getting lost down tiny alleys, walking under and overhanging arches, eating Tofu sandwiches by canal sides, and drinking espresso every morning. The air was filled with the chugging sounds of boat engines as all-wood water taxi's, flat delivery barges, police boats, pleasure boats and public water busses ferried goods and people through the city. Tens of different dialects reached us as we wandered - from the smooth, sensuality of Italian, French and Spanish, to guttural German, twangy North American, and even the banging pots-and-pans sounds of Chinese and Korean. Intermingled with this noise came the occasional sound of a exorbitantly priced tenor, crooning opera to well-heeled tourists taking romantic gondola rides. Hearing wasn't the only sense wallowing in overload. Our noses were overwhelmed in turns with various aromatic bouquets depending on where you were in the city. By the canals, the air was thick with the smells of sea-water, seaweed, deisal engines and fish. The market areas waft with the fragrance of spices, fruits and vegetables. Simply moving around you wade through the rich smell of coffee drifting from a cafe patio, or cloying perfume from a passing lady, or pungent pipe and cigar smoke. And while you try to absorb all the information from sound and smell, the others crowd into your consciousness for attention too. Every building in Venice is huge, impressive and old. Here a cathedral clad in beautiful white marble, smooth and glossy in the sun. There an old brick wall, stucco cracked to expose the rusting metal underlay, surrounding wooden window shutters painted a deep sky blue. And over there chaotic colour from a street vendor selling grotesque and beautiful carnival masks. Under your feet you can feel cobble stones laid down a millenia ago, then modern herring-bone paving stones, then a street lined with building bricks. Truly a sensual overload.

Yet as we walked around, wallowing in our senses and overwhelmed with the magnificence and the history, something occurred to me and I stopped short (Which caused some consternation to the people walking along behind me). This is what it was:

This city is built on water.

Yeah, it seems a pretty simple concept. But what got me thinking was, what made the Venetians decide to start building the city of Venice where it was? There was perfectly good, dry land just 5 km across open water on the mainland. Why did they feel compelled to paddle out in their wobbly, single-oared open-topped gondolas and build their home on muddy, smelly islands a good 3-hour row from the mainland. In an area subject to high waves, stormy adriatic seas, shifting tides, seasonal floods, earthquakes, and the always present threat of having your kid drown? Surely it can't have been for overcrowding on the mainland. And I can't believe that the early Venetians were so far-sighted as to feel that in 1000 or so years Venice would be one of the top tourist cities in Italy, thus allowing them to reap the benefits of tourism revenue.

Granted, there are decided advantages to living over the ocean (early houses in Venice were built on thick stilts sunk into the mud). First, it's mighty difficult for violent invaders to raze your city to the ground. By the time they rowed out to it, there tinder would likely be damp from sea spray, and there arms tired from pulling on oars for 3 hours. Thus you would be well prepared to defend them with nothing more than a few well chosen names and a little girly pushing match. Second, getting food was likely very easy back in the day when the oceans still held fish. There are stories of mariners simply dunking a bucket over the side and pulling up a catch of fish. Or of having to push shoals of sea turtles out of the way with an oar so your boat could pass through them. And finally, living over the ocean likely solved the problem of what to do with food once your body was done with it, so to speak (which thankfully the Venetians seem to have ceased doing). So there are advantages.

But the disadvantages were just as clear (drowning, destruction by waves, having your house sink into the mud, losing your boat and having to swim to shore, being allergic to shellfish, invaded by pirates, not being a natural tenor). To my knowledge, Venice is the only major European city built entirely on mud flats (with the exception of almost all of Holland, who's people just decided to push that messy, annoying, old ocean out of the way).

And as I walked and thought, I saw a lot of evidence that Venice was still paying for it's choice of building locals. Church towers leaned at alarming angles, and I constantly felt the urge to swerve to avoid what I thought was 1000 tonnes of brick and mortar about to come crashing down with the slightest gust of wind, flattening all the houses around and two luckless Canadian tourists who happened to be in the right place at a very wrong time ("News Flash: Patron Saint of Venice Declares War on Canadian Tourists!"). There is not a straight line to be had anywhere in the city, and I pity the poor carpenters trying to hang a door so it swings smoothly. In fact, there probably is little profit in selling carpenter T-squares at all in this city. In some of the larger buildings in Venice, one side has sunk so far down into the mud that I imagine the children who grew up in those houses have one leg longer than the other.

Yet the Venetians seem to have adapted well enough to their extreme building local. They were the first in Europe to use the term "ghetto", (which is likely a twisting of the latin term "to throw" and referring to the proximity of cast iron works near the Jewish Ghetto) and to have the oldest jewish "ghetto". They became famous for turning sand into beautiful and very pricey glass objects. They successfully smuggled the body of their patron saint (Saint Mark) from his burial site in Egypt back to Venice through the simple expediency of stuffing his corpse into a pork barrel. And apparently they have solved the problem of stray dogs (because we were told condescendingly that there are "no stray dogs in Venice, silly American tourists"). So despite having not read the first chapter in "How to Build a City" (the one on picking a sound location), the Venetians have given the world a number of important things. And ended up with a city that is captivating (and speaking personally far more romantic than Paris).

Ah Venice. May your muddy foundations never give way.

Closure on that BT thing...or not.

2005-04-02T10:36:00.000-05:00

Hey. Just a quick update. Still no word from BT. Good thing we went out and got our OWN modem. Now when I call myself for tech support, I can be sure that I will respond almost immediately!

Disconnected from the Collective Halucination

2005-03-06T08:08:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, our "free" ADSL modem from BT went on holiday. Permenantly. After calling BT about it, I was informed that "a Tech will call and set up an apointment some time to come round and fix it". Three days passed - no call. I'm assuming "some time" means some time this year or the next. Not being able to wait (after all, something amazing might happen on the "hamster-powered midi machine" website - I'm not kidding, Google it), Cin and I decide to go out and get our own ADSL modem, one that sings and dances and plays games and tucks you in at night. Failing that, at least one that reliably connects us to the Collective Halucination that is the internet, so that we can regain our status as "Homo sapiens digitalis" (of which we likely comprise about 20% or less of the entire total number of humans on the planet).

And that's the point. We lasted three days without internet. THREE DAYS. Back when I was a kid (walking to school uphill in a blizzard both ways) I sometimes went weeks without news from further away then the next town. Now, I feel completely lost when I can't simply reach out and see what's going on in Thailand, or Uzbekistan, or Toronto. It was absolutely amazing how dependent one can become on the Weird Wired Web.

Of course, we have an excuse. Cindy and I don't watch, and currently don't even OWN a television, despite the great nashing of teeth from the UK's leading law-enforcement agency, the TV Police (see the note at the bottom of this post). So our only window to what's going on in the world is the local radio station - whose apparent main concerns consist of football, whether there's a que at the A6/M1 motorway interchange, and speculation on why the Queen Mum won't attend Chuck's wedding to Camilla. Consequently we feel a little discombobulated when we can't connect to the world at large.

And yet, I think it's more then that. I think (for those of us that are wired, anyway) that perhaps the human race is evolving toward a more collective consciousness, made up of the shared experiences, images, and ideas of everyone who is connected. This Blog is a case in point - without which you wouldn't be exposed to these ramblings of mine (perhaps mercifully). And without the constant feed of data from this "higher collective" we have the sensation that we're missing something vital. Like the phantom itching amputees feel from the place where a limb once was.

The question is now, as the world differentiates further and further into the "connected" and the "disconnected", will those of us who share experiences/images/ideas be all the better for it than those who dream their own dreams, and think their own thoughts? In other words, is the increase in diverse experiences and ideas stimulating our brains into new and different directions? Or like a fastfood franchise, are we plowing down and paving over our individual cognitive functioning to put up a McPsyche - a place of homogenaity and non-imagination. A place that the "Everyman" can understand?

Sounds like there's a novel in there...

***

Note: In the UK you have to pay to watch BBC through rabbit ears. Not cable or satelite TV (called "sky" TV here) but through-the-air signals. If you don't pay, the TV police come round and confiscate your TV until you get a license. Cindy and I have been getting politely threatening letters from these people ever since we moved in, asking us if we're SURE we don't have a TV and that the inspectors could be calling round ANY MOMENT and by then it's TOO LATE and that we could suffer a HUGE FINE or worse, be forced to eat marmite. Its as if they think we misplaced our TV. Or don't realize that we have a TV tucked away in a back closet somewhere. Or maybe had one fall inadvertantly between the cushions of the sofa, there to rest with the loose change and the pocket lint. Maybe they've convinced themselves that us "hooligan colonials" have been stealing UK TV signals and smuggling them back to Canada to sell at a huge profit. Regardless, the near monthly letters have been a good chuckle and we often gather round the warmth of the fire at nights, the cats purring contentedly at our feet, and re-read the crinkled, finger-smudged words from these stauch defenders of public law and order.

The Lock-in

2005-03-06T06:52:00.000-05:00

The Brits have some crazy habits. Many the world is already aware of, such as driving on the right side of the road, spending weekends and evenings "tidying up" national forests, and a deep and abiding fascination for Marmite. Recently, thanks to my neighbours Rob and Karen, I discovered another one - the "Lock-In".

On Friday, Rob and Karen invite Cin and I out to a pub in Leicester to listen to the live music of a friend of theirs (who plays absolutely amazing improv folk violin!). Cin had to work, so I agreed to go solo. That evening we piled into Karen's little blue car and whizzed away to a pub called the Black Horse, where we bought each other rounds of ale (the house best was called "White Horse Ale" - Brits also like their horses). We sang folk songs ("And now the Drinkin' verse!") and generally caroused and made merry until around about 11 pm. Then the "Lock-in" procedure began.

Now to truly get the depth of the story, I'll actually need to cover a little background. So let's roll the clock back to 1914 - The British commonwealth is mired deep in the tragedy of WW1. Few young men are present, and those that are are either heading to war whole, or coming back from it broken. Older men, women and sometimes even children are spending their days in factories to ensure a steady flow of material to the trenches, including high explosives. Up until this time public houses in the UK were open and allowed to serve alcohol 24hrs. As a consequence, many people were arriving at the munitions factories out-of-their-skull drunk. And spatially challenged, clumsy, people with poor-decision making abilities are not the best ones to have working around high explosives. So, to eliminate any unfortunate accidents, British Parliament decreed that all Public houses had to cease serving alchohol at 11 pm (with the exception of the pubs at the fishplants, whose employees work on a 24 hr shift timetable, and the pub in the Parliament building itself, for no reason what-so-ever). This provided enough time for people to sober up before heading off to their shift at the factory. Despite the fact that WW1 and WW2 have long since finished, this law has never been revoked. Consequently, all pubs in the UK are still required by law to close at 11 pm.

So, there I was, enjoying the music (you haven't lived until you've heard some bloke do an unplugged render of the Rolling Stone's hit "Honky Tonk Woman" accompanied by a truly gifted improv folk violinist) and great company, when at 11 pm the bartenders began ringing a bloody great bell and bellowing "Drink up! 11pm! Drink up! I need yer glasses, mates!". People drained their glasses, grabbed their coats and began filing out the door. Not wanting to be left out (and not quite thinking clearly anymore - that White Horse has a mean kick!) I drained my glass, rose and began struggling into my own coat. It was only after I had succeeded in putting my arm into the correct sleeve and was woozely showing off my miraculous accomplishment to my new best friends that I realized that none of the other people at my table had stood.

Karen waved her hand at me, and quietly bade me sit again, "Just wait a bit," she admonished. I sank back into my seat, then helped the guy next to me finish off his pint of apple cider (an endeavor in which I'm nearly 80% certain he actually asked my assistance in doing). After about 15 minutes, the bar had pretty much emptied of everyone except the people at our table - friends of the musicians plus one confused canuck. The Bartender came round the bar to the door, closed and locked it, and briskly pulled the curtains. While he was doing this, we all stood, gathered our coats, trooped around to the other side of the room (the bar was an island cutting the room in half) and took seats in the "less-windowed" half. The bartender returned to his post, and with a wink said, "Right chaps, looks like we're locked in. Might as well have a drink, eh? Bars open." And the Black Horse was flowing with White Horse once again.

This odd and technically illegal custom apparently happens every night. And is known and pretty much accepted by the authorities. In fact, Karen told me that during one lock-in at their regular pub in Quorn (called the White Horse - no relation to the ale of the same name), they spent the evening swapping rounds and stories with the local constable, who hadn't bothered to go back to his patrol after nipping in for a pint with his mates earlier in the day. When I asked why they didn't just change the laws the Brits looked at me with a look of shock and said, "But then we wouldn't be able to have a lock-in anymore."

Why let progress stand in the way of years of tradition? Gotta love the brits.

Food for Thought

2005-02-17T11:10:00.000-05:00

So Valentine's has come and gone again. Another hallmark holiday where you can purchase and send a little bit of paper to your loved ones to prove to them that you're thinking of them and love them enough to fight you're way through thousands of shoppers to read hundreds of cards to find that special one that has the words to express what it is that you probably express everyday. Yet despite the contrived nature of the holiday, I still love the cards my wife gets me and the words that she puts in them herself. They come from her heart, and that touches me. Unfortunately, and despite the fact that I like to write, I've never been really good at putting down what is supposed to go in a card. Most of my scribbles amount to things like "Read the card. Love Mark." Or "What he said." Hardly words that can be relied upon to inflame a woman's passion.

So this year, I decided to think outside the box and baked my wife a batch of Gingerbread men and women and little gingerbread hearts. And then I sat back and watched myself and my wife exhibit an interesting phenomenom that I'm sure spells doom for Humanity. Gingerbread men (and women - we'll call them GPs - Gingerbread People - to be perfectly politically correct) provide a vehicle to reflect the darkness that exists in every single human psyche.

I presented my wife with the gift on Sunday, and after the traditional newly-wed "I love you! No, I love You! I love you More! No I love you more!" that I've been told returns to the pink, fuzzy ether from which it came somewhere around the 3rd year of marraige, we each picked our "victim" and sat down to the serious business of eating GPs. And I'm using the term "victim" in its literal sense - which is where the whole reflection-of-the-psyche-doom-of-humanity comes in.

Each of us had a cup of hot coffee. We sat, hands gripping the handles of our coffee mugs, and calmly discussed which body part of the GP should be subjected to the scalding liquid first. Cindy chose the feet so her cookie couldn't run away, whereas I went for the arms so mine couldn't fight back. Then, giggling evily, and emitting tiny, high-pitched squeels of agony on behalf of our mute victims, we dunked the chosen part, bit it off and ate it.

Well, that's not so bad, really. After all, that's what GPs are for - to dunk and eat. But here is where it gets really macabre. We walked the little GPs around the table (Obviously Cindy's couldn't walk well because of a lack of feet) and said things like, "Ow, my feet" or "My arms! You bastard!" Then, laughing like school children, we picked another body part, dunked it in the scalding liquid, and ate it. Mercy and quarter were not given. Our consumptive torture of the GPs was relentless. Only when we were finished, leaning back, and sipping at our coffee did it occur to me what we had just done.

Now I like to think I'm a pretty caring, giving kind of guy. I don't kick puppies. I don't chase squirrels with a lawnmower. I'm (nearly) vegetarian. I don't support fox hunting, bull fighting, cock fighting, bear baiting, snake badgering, or hare coursing or any other blood sport involving the killing or maiming of living things. I take spiders who have strayed to close to my personal space and gently place them on the leaf of the nearest indoor plant. I'll admit, I have been known to swat a misquito in my day. And Cindy, well, she's an animal Saint - a regular Mother Theresa of the non-human. Sometimes when I step out of the house on my way to school, I find a small congregation of chanting rabbits just outside our door, each with a little Cindy picture clutched in their paws and their little red eyes alight with ferverous worship. It's because of her that we share living space with two stray cats, two florida turtles, a quadruple amputee Anole lizard we've affectionately named "Fingers", and in the spring (prior to their re-introduction back into the wilds) several cages of ravenous, biting, clawing, twitching, orphaned baby squirrels. And we'd have more roomies if we didn't have the requirement of so much living space for ourselves. So, I don't think we're bad folks.

Yet, the calm and detached manner that we played at torturing and consuming the GPs begs to differ. How many other compassionate people do this? My curiosity peeked, I decided to do a little field work. I trundled down to my local baker, where GPs are generated for public consumption on a daily basis. There, ensconced at an inconspicuous table I watched in mounting horror as people purchased and consumed the hapless morsels. Old men gummed off limbs, then smiled faintly as they regarded the carnage they had wrought. Children chomped and squeeled, showing each other the various hideous amputations with their own teethmarks on them. Women invariably went for the feet, saving the head for last. New born babes, nurturing mothers, police officers, pillars of the community, bankers, airline pilots, nuns, all seemed to take delight in maiming the GPs. Such acts are even reflected as humour in our mainstream media. The original Shrek had a GP that had been tortured into revealing the location of his fellow magical creatures by having his legs broken off, and (this is especially disturbing) played with right in front of him.

But really, who cares. In the grand scheme of things they are, after all, simply cookies - inanimate objects with no feelings or pain receptors. What's a little harmless fun?

The point is this - there is something in the human psyche that gets perverse pleasure out of the symbolic torturing of GPs. Some dark nook or cranny that appears to be in every one of us. Give anyone a GP and a cup of hot liquid and you can watch them contemplate, dip, chomp, and smile quietly as they gaze at the spot where the missing limb was. The fact that we can externalize such a violent act, even imagine such a violent act, let alone take pleasure from it should be a warning to us all to beware the dark parts of our psyche. It's a small step onto a very slippery slope...

So the next time you're handed a GP, display your compassion and say, "No thank you. I refuse to allow the bestial nature of the human psyche destroy the flickering light of hope that is compassion", then smile benevolently and tolerantly at your violent, guilt-ridden and likely absolutely baffled, former companions.

Mark

Advertisement taglines from 35,000 ft

2005-02-05T04:45:00.000-05:00

Most of my traveling involves long flights from one side of Canada to the other, or from the ends to the middle. Usually around hour four I slip into a semi-lucid state, staring out the window and contemplating the unbelievable distance just below my feet. On this particular flight, perhaps fueled by the extra bag of stale snack mix that passes for an inflight meal these days, this fell out of my subconscious. The lines in paranthesis are direct rips from adds in a magazine I had brought on with me.

We are an oblong pill of humanity.
(An introduction to impulse buying.)
Held up with arrogance, science and downforce.
(More power. More torque.)
Forcing down our connection until it is buried.
(Travel in the style to which you're accustomed.)
Hidden beneath layers of polyester, wool, flesh, spirit.
(Another exciting product.)
cultured cotton, chafing cultured asses.
(Unexpected power.)
Each occupant a seething blast of bio-agent.
(New and improved, and safer on fabrics.)
We have impact, we have footprint.
(Better living through chemicals.)
We are medicating the planet with our humanity.
(To keep you playing longer.)
The question in my mind,
(You can actually hear the sound of silence.)
Are we a throat lonzenge?
(Now available at home.)
Or a suppository?
(Where will you be when your diarhea returns?)

-Mark

So ... a Blog.

2005-02-04T07:20:00.000-05:00

I'm a little late getting into this whole blogger craze, despite the amount of time I procrastinate surfing the Weird Wild Web. And to tell the truth, not entirely sure of what the hell I'm doing here. However, it's 4 am, I seem to be stuck in the "on" position and I've been meaning to start one of these things for a while, so better late than never. And I suppose that just like everyone else who does a personal "blog", there is an element arrogance and public exhibitionism. The exhibitionism I imagine comes from the same place that streaking did in the 70's - only this time we're exposing our thoughts to public ridicule instead of our bodies. An info-age, superhighway, cyber-thingamajiggy type of brain streaking. The arrogance from the fact that any of us believes anyone other than our own parents is going to read these things and care about what was being written. I think I like these blogger reasons better than the alternative - that our super-sized, bigger-is-better, SUV, "better living through chemicals" society has so alienated us from the collective back-rub of humanity that Blogging is the only recourse we have for supplementing some missing social ties. Oh for a verandah, friendly neighbours, some lemon aid and a rocking chair...

Of course, this is all about the little bloggers, like myself, without the "thousands of influential readers" that patronize the blogs of the more articulate. And I suppose like a lot of bloggers out there, this is a great forum for writer wannabe's (like myself) to put thoughts out to the general world and test their reception.

So don't expect consistency. These entries of mine will likely be random thoughts sparked by overheard conversations in coffee shops and emailed in from my cellphone at weird hours. I'll try to make them thought provoking and entertaining. After all, that's just good writer practice, and I suppose I'm practising to write here. If anyone other than my wife and family decide to read and/or comment on things, well thank you. If not, thank you to Blogger for allowing me to send out my message in a bottle.

-Mark