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November 2008 Archives
November 1, 2008
Looking for drums in all the wrong places
Social networking is used for nearly everything these days; there are general sites like Facebook and MySpace, but there are also niche sites like LinkedIn, which is for professionals, and Flickr, for people with cameras. And while every niche is likely covered these days, I wonder how much room there is to explore your interests in a completely different social networking context.
That is, can you form a band using online dating sites?
I'm willing to bet there are loopholes in the Terms of Use that would let you get away with it; if you're allowed to be just looking for "friendship", why not be able to look for "jam sessions"? Instead of clicking your preferences for smoking, religion and interests, why not click your preferences for rock, blues and country? It must be possible. But can it work? Check it out, this is how I'd do it.
"Solo male guitarist seeking like-minded musicians to form a band. All styles of music welcome. Drummers encouraged to apply. Owning a van is preferred, but not required. Emo rockers welcome, but only if they don't write lyrics.
If you're not a musician and you're on here looking for love, if this whole band thing works out we'll be looking for groupies."
The possibilities are endless. If you have any social network-jamming ideas, send them to me at JW at SaturatedMarket dot Net. Better yet, if you pull this one off, let me know (and can you get me backstage passes?)!
Until next time,
JW
Posted by JW on November 1, 2008 12:12 PM Permalink
November 3, 2008
Move to the rhythm
I bought a new metronome today, and it got me thinking (about time something did, eh?); when you're not playing to the same timing and rhythm in a band, it doesn't matter what you do, you're going to sound off. Well, I think the same is possible in everyday life.
I'm sure you've had a day like this; I sure have. You wake up a few minutes late, you're a little slower getting everything together in the morning, you miss your bus, and your day from there is just shot. Or you keep missing the walk signal at the crosswalk, you hit every red light, you miss your subway (and the one you get on afterwards is the one that has to stop for mechanical problems), and no matter what, you keep nearly bumping into people at every corner and doorway.
It happens. And it feels to me like being out of time with the rest of the world. Like you're playing in a band and you missed the count-off.
Or it might just be me...maybe I'm out of tune.
Until next time,
JW
Posted by JW on November 3, 2008 5:46 PM Permalink
November 5, 2008
Why I don't write
I've decided my brain is part of the conspiracy. The conspiracy against ME. Or at least this website.
You see, I actually thought of something to write about today! An honest to goodness blog post! And not one fueled by late night ravings or whatever happened to be bugging me at the moment; something actually GOOD! And where is that idea now?
Buried somewhere in the closet of my mind. And no matter how many old sweaters, boxes full of something-or-other, or centipede carcasses I frantically throw aside, it's not to be found.
Instead I'm left sitting here with a post about not having a post, a crippling decision of whether my muse would be better served by a beer or cup of tea, and the spine tingling thought of metaphorical mental centipede carcasses.
Instead, let me leave you with an undeveloped thought that I wanted to make into a blog post, but couldn't think of how.
Why is it that even though I'm pretty good at guitar and reasonably competent at video games, I'm confoundingly hopeless at guitar video games?
Until next time,
JW
Posted by JW on November 5, 2008 7:54 PM Permalink
November 7, 2008
Going nuts
Let's get personal for a moment here. I'd like to make a confession to everyone, let you in on a big part of my life:
I have a nut allergy.
MAN it feels good to get that out in the open.
But seriously, I want to take a minute to speak to you as an allergy dude, to speak to all my brothers and sisters out there, and to maybe get the ear of all you "can eat whatever I want"ers. You know who you are.
I'm not sure if everyone out there feels this way, but I am actually often embarrassed to admit my allergy for the first time. Because I know that while most people "get it", and the number of allergies is growing (which is kinda bizarre, actually), there are some people who are, for lack of a more moderate word, intolerant.
Bear with me.
You know the type. They're the ones that gripe because they can't send their kid to school with peanut butter. They're the ones who tell you it's actually psychosomatic and that you should just get over it*.
I also get a little annoyed at the people who, every single time, ask why I'm not having any cake. I know they mean well, but I'm getting ever closer to digging out the button I had as a kid: "STOP! Don't feed me! I'm special!"**
For those who don't have a life threatening allergy, let me use analogy to enlighten you. I want you to imaging living in a world where there is rat poison sold amidst all the food. Sometimes it's clearly labelled, but sometimes you're not sure if you're buying a poison soufflé. So you're a bit more cautious, and you learn to live with it. In fact, most times you barely notice it because you've lived with it for so long. But that doesn't change the fact that not paying attention could get you killed, and every once in a while, you are reminded of that. Now this isn't to say I go through my life either in constant fear or with an adrenaline high***, but it does mean that I'm tired of having to avoid certain things or maybe feel a pang of worry when I take what seems like an insignificant chance.
This brings me to my actual point amidst all the whining. Given that allergy sufferers are a growing demographic, there's more of us now than ever. And if the rest are like me, they would jump at the chance to snag some consumables that are guaranteed nut free. I like that a lot of companies have jumped on this opportunity with giant green dollar signs in their eyes, but I'd like to see MORE of them. Opening up new avenues of chocolate bars is entirely welcome, but I want to see the same in cereal. I want to see it in BREAD (seriously; I'm tired of grocery stores baking sections giving the same tired "We cannot guarantee that these products have not come into contact with blah de blah blah" and not trying a new approach). I would eat at an allergy-friendly restaurant (gluten or non-gluten?). I would shop at an allergy conscious grocery store. I'm even willing to venture that I'd even be willing to pay a slight premium for a nut-free brand; though I'd completely gripe about it (actually, last I checked, Loblaw's' "no-name" brand discount products have a terrific track record in this department).
I know there are products following this trend. I'm certain restaurants and stores exist to cater to this. Hell, we got peanut oil taken out of most of the deep fryers, there's been plenty of progress. But I think there could be more. And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.
Until next time,
JW
* - Allergies are not psychosomatic. The last (and only) time I had a reaction, it was the symptoms that led me to realize I had eaten something with nuts in it. And for the record, it was at my parents' house, to drive home the point that you can't always make assumptions.
** - This is a real pin. It has a picture of a stop sign on it. Clearly I wasn't dorky enough as a child with my big square early 90's glasses and my fanny pack for carrying my epipens in, I needed a big pin telling everyone I'm "special". I think this explains a lot.
*** - Somewhere I saw a webcomic that made the claim that a friend of the artist had an allergy to grapes, so he imagined that whenever his friend ate fruit salad he must have felt like Batman. I wouldn't go that far, but it's such a badass idea I think I WILL go that far. Also, if anyone knows what comic I'm talking about, let me know, because I can't think of it for the life of me.
Posted by JW on November 7, 2008 8:53 PM Permalink
A great idea
Again, I'm afflicted by the problem of having an idea for something to write, but it's gone. So I'm going to take this time to mention something else before I forget AGAIN.
Chuck Westbrook of I Hate Your Job fame has had a brilliant brainwave. He's started a project to bring the blogging community together to focus attention on underappreciated blogs. Every two weeks he picks a blog with great writing but very few readers, and then everyone who's pitched in reads that blog for two weeks. No forced links, no exchanges; you just read the blog for two weeks, leave comments, maybe link to things you find interesting. It builds up their traffic, gets them exposure, and welcomes them to the blogging community, rather than feeling like you're just throwing words into an empty room on the internet. Dozens of bloggers (and I'm sure hundreds more casual readers) have jumped on board to help out, and they're already underway with their first blog of choice!
I'm sure most of the people who see this site came from Chuck's, thanks to my shameless self promotion on his forum, but if you somehow came here first, please check out Chuck, and his great idea!
Until next time,
JW
Posted by JW on November 7, 2008 9:59 PM Permalink
November 11, 2008
You're not gonna EAT that, are you?
Ever notice how after growing up with certain things, you tend to think they're normal; that is, until you move out, and suddenly find out (courtesy of your roommates) that maybe your family is actually insane? It happens a lot, but nowhere near as striking as with food.
My family has all sorts of strange food habits passed down through the generations that I always thought were perfectly legitimate, but actually turned out to be...rather disturbing. Please enjoy these culinary wonders (enjoy reading about them, not actually eating them):
Pan gravy: An old favourite of my grandparents. After you make roast beef or a juicy steak, dip a piece of bread in the drippings on the cutting board, and soak up the juice. Recommended for the more...carnivorous among you.
Maple syrup: Yes, that's nothing unusual, particularly to my fellow canucks. But then you look at my grandpa, who pours some into a small bowl and just eats it with a spoon and a piece of bread to wipe up the rest.
Seriously. I'm not making these up.
Dry/Apple cereal: I grew up with a milk allergy which I eventually outgrew, but in the meantime this meant I didn't put milk in my cereal. So I'd eat most of my cereal dry. This apparently astonishes people, which I always found odd. But if it was something less flavourful than fruit loops, sugar crisps or fruity pebbles (by the way, any Americans wanna sneak some of that across the border for me? We don't get it up here anymore), I'd put apple juice and brown sugar on it. For the record, even my family says that's weird, but I'm fairly sure I didn't come up with the idea myself. I DON'T DO IT ANYMORE. Yeesh. Do something when you're 8 and live with it the rest of your life.
I still eat cereal dry, though. I don't know how you people can drink milk.
Beereal: Pour beer on your cereal. Okay, I just made that one up, but someone must have done this before.
Black coffee: Outside of my family, everyone I meet always says the same thing to me in the morning: "Ew, you drink your coffee black?" Yes. Yes I do. And by the way, to anyone working in a coffee shop, if I say I want my coffee black, that means I want you to fill it. Don't leave it only part-full so I can put in cream and sugar. I want my money's worth! GIVE ME MY CAFFEINE.
I'm sure there are plenty of other people out there with bizarre food stories. If you do, drop me a line at JW *at* SaturatedMarket *dot* net. I'm thinking of bringing back the comments, but I seem to have forgotten how at the moment. But you'll have to make do in the meantime.
Until next time,
JW
Posted by JW on November 11, 2008 9:48 PM Permalink
November 22, 2008
Fake, seen
One of the things I've never understood about online communities is how quick people are to insist things are fake, or copies. And not just to say it, but to do it with such conviction, as if they're an expert and need to make sure everyone in earshot (err...eyeshot? What's the term if you're reading something?) knows the TRUTH*.
* - Disclaimer: may not be the truth
But where does this extreme tendency towards skepticism come from? I suppose you could argue that given the ease of digital manipulation, it's getting harder to trust whether or not someone's pulled one over on you. Chain letters have been around for years with cleverly photoshopped images, not to mention examples like Lonelygirl and Bridezilla, where professionals presented videos in the guise of amateurs.
There's also the possibility of trying to disassociate oneself from what they're seeing; just recently a young man committed suicide webcam, and when police arrived on the scene an internet commentator was quick to point out that they were fakes. "im calling fake...The cop looked fake, not much on his belt. usually they have cuffs on the back/extra magazines and a baton i thought...maybe im wrong, but that looked like crap, they also found the video cam very fast."1 Maybe I'M wrong, but if I had just seen someone die on the internet, I'd probably not want to believe it. An extreme example, but given what you can find online these days, not necessarily an uncommon one.
And sometimes it's just to to be a jerk.
I'm not saying a level of alertness isn't important; I think we should spend more time practicing critical thinking, not accepting things just because someone said so, and being vigilant for those who would mislead us. But I worry that we're practicing attentiveness for the wrong reasons, and in the wrong way. If you find a lie paraded around as fact, then by all means you should argue it, but have some backup information. An acquaintance once was alerted to someone using her art on another site and claiming it was theirs. Thanks to her fans alerting the site administrators and pointing to her own galleries of work, it was swiftly dealt with. But pointing to something someone posts and making vague claims that you've seen it "somewhere before" doesn't do it for me.
Why are we so quick to call foul? Why do we have to get our defenses up so quickly? It's like the internet (or at least people on internet forums) have a crippling phobia such that if they fall for something, a little gremlin will leap out from the shadows and yell "gotcha!" It leads to a sort of mean-spirited cynicism, distrusting everyone so that you won't be "got". Sure, you won't fall for anything, but what about the joy and wonder of the unknown? Whatever happened to suspending your belief for the sake of something fantastic? And I'm certainly disappointed by the loss of giving people the benefit of the doubt. I'm worried that this is a symptom of a growing distrust that we still have in the internet. It's been with us for long enough that some people don't even remember when there wasn't an internet, and yet we still seem to be in an awkward stage with it. People still use it in disappointing ways, and many people are still wary of its intentions (or rather, wary of the intentions of the former group of people). But I think we should be more focused on serious matters rather than the potentially photoshipped image du jour.
Until next time,
JW
1 - Source: The Globe and Mail
Posted by JW on November 22, 2008 6:56 PM Permalink
November 26, 2008
Backing up truisms with pseudoscience
The "Observer Principle" refers to cases in which the simple act of observing something can affect the very outcome being observed. Wikipedia offers examples such as:
- If a person knows they're being watched, they will behave differently
- A thermometer will slightly alter the temperature of what it's measuring
- Particles can be affected by the very apparatus designed to observe them
According to this principle, simply observing something can alter its behaviour, even down to microscopic physical levels. So it stands to reason that with enough influence, the very properties of matter could change, like causing the boiling point of water to increase dramatically.
Which is why a watched pot never boils.
Until next time,
JW
