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Archive for February, 2008

CBC Canada Reads: Day 4

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Well, we’ve conveniently gotten rid of the two books written and recommended by women, and the only book written by anyone non-white. Of course everyone laughs and says that it was just, you know, how it happened. One person says that, well, there are three male judges and maybe books about the girls just don’t appeal to guys. Everyone can imagine exploring Alberta 100 years ago or being a 70 year old hockey player, of course.

Posted in Books | 2 Comments »

I have started watching Damages, which I am now watching addictively. I only have three more episodes. They are starting to tie things together and stopping adding seventy three new plot points every time. So far it’s all hanging together very nicely, especially when I just assume that every single character is a setup — when I forget and assume someone isn’t, I am always proven wrong. I am still not entirely sure which side is setting anyone up at any given time. It’s a 13 episode miniseries, pretty much, and available on DVD.

I am also listening to the Canada Reads folks, and they’re explaining how ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’ is so culturally specific (ie not about whites, not about men) that they cannot possibly recommend it to all Canadians, as opposed to King Leary, which is safely about a hockey player, and that’s not a culture at all. My heart is with this book to win, but my brain knows it won’t. Speculative fiction! Women! Caribbean culture! Better get to more standard books about snow and white and ice and snow in Canada.

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Sea of Crises

Monday, February 18th, 2008

You know, I do not currently have anything going on that could be called a crisis. (I may, in a few days. But right now: no!)

It’s really a rather nice feeling.

So to counteract that, I will complain.

When I was going somewhere I didn’t want to go to, at -20 weather, before 8 on Saturday, I had to pick up gas. (Subcomplaint: lost my bus pass.) Fine. I also decided to get myself one of those machine espressos, which are unaccountably tasty and in any case hot.

I go to pay, and the guy at the counter asks me if I am cold. Well, yes, it’s minus fucking twenty out, of course I’m cold. No, he says, he means I seem cold-like-unfriendly. I am not sure how friendly I am supposed to be while waiting in line at the cash while he chats with another customer, but obviously friendlier. I ignore that and say it’s early and cold, and he informs me this is Canada! And we must get used to the cold! And not complain![1] And also I should smile more and be less cold.

Today’s xkcd comic:

The forum for the chat about this thread? Unsurprisingly, how it just happens to be true, women are just worse at math than men (overlapping bell curves etc), hunter gatherer proves it, how could we think otherwise, etc etc. Historically, there’s been a lot of trying to prove that people who aren’t white Christian men are stupider than those who are, by trying to parse brain size, brain weight ratio, size of various subparts of the brain, and so on, and they’ve all been shown to be bullshit. So the standard of proof to show that there is an innate biological difference that makes women stupider than men is really high, and it’s so far been unproven.

Some of my favourite quotes:

Seriously, I think that, on average, boys are better at math than girls (just because of the way our brains evolved)

It’s just science! I think it, and I used a science word, so I proved it.

I believe the genders were in equal positions during the hunter-gatherer era (women may have even had a little more going for them than men) but the trend was towards men dominating women during the agricultural revolution, due to unequal division (i.e. specialization) of tasks due to biological differences.

I’m not sexist, because I claim that thousands or tens of thousands or a lot of years ago, women were smarter than men, but now they have uteruses so they don’t have to think.

Well, the whole point is that they’re brains function somewhat differently, actually, because they serve somewhat different purposes. Just think about an average society: generally the male will be the one doing the hunting/raising the money, right? To do that he needs to solve problems. To do that he needs more logical components of his brain.

Men work more, therefore they are smarter. There are absolutely no societal reasons for this to be true, so it must be the brain. Men hunt down the money, like when they work as middle management, and women gather up the laundry.

Now, I’m not dismissing society as a factor; in fact, I think societal forces are the main factor (as they are what magnify the differences—in a balanced society, I think the differences would probably be minimal); it’s just that, when looking for the origin of all of these societal forces, I can think of no other explanation than biology.

I can’t think of another answer. Some might say that this proves that men aren’t creative, but I say it proves that there is no other answer.

There are some people valiantly (and, of course, pointlessly) fighting the good fight there, but I am going to go and smile and be super friendly to all the strangers I pass by on the street so that when they try to pick me up, I’m a bitch for not being interested in them.

[1] What would we ever talk about if we didn’t complain about the weather? We can no longer even complain that HNIC always shows the Leafs since, due to their not being very good, they don’t.

Posted in lunacy | 3 Comments »

Sea that has become known

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

It’s hard to remember how things were before they changed. I know that once I worked hard to keep in touch with people. I wasn’t outgoing, or good at meeting new people, but once I finally managed to make a friend, by god I was going to keep them. Except, you know, it didn’t work out, and now I am most casual about this. I don’t know that it would have been different even had I continued trying, because mostly it was one-sided and that’s not much of a friendship. (I admit, I am occasionally now on the other side. It’s sometimes that I don’t want to keep the relationship, but often something else. This is even obvious to me in blogging and commenting.)

Now of course I have the world’s teensiest circle of friends. But they are friends that I can count on, even if, between everyone’s busy-ness, I never actually see any of them.

But though I know I used to be more dedicated at trying to keep in touch, I don’t remember how I did it, or imagine how it could have been me who did it. I cannot figure out how I might try to do the same thing again. As I sometimes feel it might be nice to have a few more friends, I think, oh, I ought to try making some, but I’m not entirely sure how (my better friends also have small circles of friends), and perhaps I will make an effort, briefly, say on facebook, but if it’s not reciprocated, well, that’s it. I do not want to force myself onto people. Probably they’re lazy like me, but the truth is that I do not want to know the truth.

This is generally true. I do not want to know what people really think of me. If there is a specific action I do that drives you nuts, it’s not a weird pet peeve, and you’re actually someone I care about making happy, tell me. Otherwise: no. I don’t want to know that friend A wishes I’d message less and friend B wishes I’d go to restaurants that serve things that are neither Indian nor breakfast. (Look, I will go to those, but why bother, when there is so much Indian food and so many pancakes around?) Or whatever my irritations are, no doubt legion. I even more do not want to know what casual acquaintances think of me. Polite fictions, people.

Posted in lunacy | 3 Comments »

Southern Sea

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

The fall here was really rough. Most of it is stuff I don’t want to talk about, and some of it stuff that is getting better, but it was rough. (On me, on my sisters, by extension on my parents, on other extended family members.) Things still feel fragile, but I guess with time they will feel less so. Or they will prove to actually be fragile and break.

Matilda, for instance, is fine. She doesn’t limp anymore and she’s fat, as really skinny cats go. She has a nice purse dog collar (apparently purse dogs have smaller necks than cats, and cat collars are too big for her) and doesn’t try to go outside now. She is on and off loving again, though she slept on me this morning and purred. She never does that except when it is inconvenient.

Mostly I am not talking about things to people. Mostly I am not thinking about things. Will it break them? Will it help? I don’t know, or don’t want to know. Avoiding works well. I can forget things after a time, float along on a river of things working themselves out behind the scenes. This isn’t what caused things to go bad. I don’t think anything caused that. I don’t know if avoidance helped (kept me sane, ish) or hurt (kept me from doing things that might or might not have made a change) but it was all I could manage.

It’s interesting sometimes to see how other people deal. Mostly it seems to be the same way I do: avoidance for personal issues, working their asses off for other people. Averages out, in the end.

Posted in lunacy | 2 Comments »

Serpent Sea

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

Even the CBC is talking about the primaries today. Which is understandable, what with them being all important and groundbreaking. But I am sick of listening to, for instance, electoral officers in California whining that they need to count the ballots! By hand! It might take them hours! California has about the same number of people as Canada, over much less area. So I do not believe that it might take them days to count all the ballots, unless they are idiots about planning for this non-surprise primary.

They were also talking about how Obama just isn’t able to make the witty retort in a debate. It’s just not a talent he has. Which is a load of crap. Yes, certainly it’s easier for some people to do the quotable phrase, and some subjects lend themselves to it more than others. But it’s a skill, a learnable one, especially if you’re as intelligent as Obama clearly is. It may not be a skill he thinks is worth learning, or it may be useful to him to be able to claim that he can’t do the witty remarks, he can only do the long, well-thought out speeches.

What amazed me was the credulity – or feigned credulity – of the hosts. “Why yes! Obama is just not able to come up with bon mots! Absolutely! Nor can any of the speechwriters he has, nor are there any speechwriters capable of coming up with them who are willing to work on the Obama campaign.”

It’s a skill, like charm, not an inborn talent. It requires practice. This is something which a radio interview host ought to know, because it’s a skill they use, too.

Things are a lot easier once you realize they’re practiced skills. He’s not charming, he is actively charming you. Charm as a verb. It’s great to have that ability, and it’s clear some people have it more easily than others, but it’s something people can choose to do or not, and it’s something I am wary of, because it’s so often used cleverly, to mask something else. (Usually, but not always, to mask obnoxious levels of self-interest.)

I, of course, am effortlessly charming, and clever, and am never hiding a hidden agenda. Vote for me! I won’t bother to do much, which means I won’t do anything wrong.

Posted in lunacy | 3 Comments »

Also my tongue hurts

Monday, February 4th, 2008

You know those days that start out badly and just keep getting worse? I woke up this morning knowing I shouldn’t get out of bed, and I was right.

Nothing majorly bad happened, just a huge list of fucking irritating shit, including forgetting my bus pass and having to reinstall Office several times and still having it not work right. I watched last night’s House, though, which though a little farfetched medically was funny again and surprised me with the twist at the end, so I am in a reasonably good mood to go to sleep. Then tomorrow will be better, because I will complain to someone if it is *worse*.

Moon posts will start tomorrow. I wanted to start them on something a little less irritated.

Posted in Complainty | No Comments »

Lists of things

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

This week I had to come up with a set like Silver/Gold/Platinum for three levels of a product, where all the levels had to be good, and the names had to be positive. And entirely culture-neutral, so no place names, no continent names, no Norse gods. This was enjoyable, and I’m pleased with the choices we ended up with, but what was far more fun was coming up with completely inappropriate sets. Mostly they were religiously themed. I liked Father / Son / Holy Ghost, and various levels of hell were appealing, but it’s hard to choose just three.

But in random looking about, I came upon a list of the seas of the moon, and decided to blog under their names, one a day, until I either finish them or get bored.

Posted in too lazy to categorise this | 3 Comments »

Archive for February, 2008

CBC Canada Reads: Day 4

Sea of fertility

Sea of Crises

Sea that has become known

Southern Sea

Serpent Sea

Also my tongue hurts

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