people like bandwagons

In this issue: besides me acting like this is a newsletter or magazine: contest results, a new contest, I'm no longer a geologist, and a brief bit about bandwagons. It's amusing, you'll like it.

Contest results:
A strong showing from all this time, probably inspired by my provision of many photos to play with. Joe submitted this to me via e-mail:
I especially like how Martin's forehead is cracking open. And he's like "what the hell, guys?"

I should have said that you're all more than welcome to alter the photos with photoshop, or just with 'paint' as Joe has done. Very nice.

Anyway the winners for each photo. Every winner was a unanimous agreement, i.e. all of me agreed with myself.

Shannon wins the Martin/Lord/Other Guy shot, cause it really does look like a standoff between Martin and the Other Guy, with Lord as a kindof onlooker. Joe gets lots of merit for effort, and Steve's "inner mind" battle of Lord's is very good... especially the last line "Yessir, I will do that".

First Klien pic; I gotta say Shannon again wins with "since when did they start putting girls in these podiums?", although Steve's first suggestion is a close second, as "You know, I could really eat a banana right about know...." is about the extent of Klien's thought processes.

Second Klein pic win goes to Steve with "There's life outside Alberta??????", but Shannon gets points for noticing that he does indeed resemble R. Dangerfield in that pic.

Nobody commented on the last one, but I'd like to suggest that Steve's second suggestion for Klein pic 2 works equally well if not better in the last one (i.e. no equalization payments).

New Contest:
Here are the new contest pics. They are not political this time, and are inherently amusing to begin with. Note they share a theme.

I am no longer a Geologist:
The department is looking at changing its name from "Geology and Geophysics" to the less cumbersome "Geosciences". I for one am fully in support of this, and will start referring to myself as a "geoscientist" rather than a "geologist" from now on. Despite that the term makes me sounds more like a pale-faced snivelling lab-rat than the strapping, rugged, burly mountaineer that I totally perceive myself to be, the term does make me sound more like an actual scientist and less like I just have a collection of assorted pebbles from ditches.

I also like it because it's vague enough to make me sound like an expert scientist in any field beginning with "geo-". This includes geology, geophysics, geochemistry, geography, geomorphology, geodesy, geolocation, geometry, and geopolitics. Therefore I can now speak with authority about such wideranging topics as oil and gas production, environmental issues, roadbuilding and other construction, map making, GPS systems, archipelagos, Mayan culture, Pythagoras, and UN "imperialism" as viewed by particular countries, in addition to the stuff I actually know a bit about.

Bandwagons:
A note on my global-warming rant from Wednesday... I find this quote from Nietzsche to be particularly applicable: "men believe in the truth of all that is seen to be strongly believed in." In other words, people like bandwagons. If lots and lots of people believe something, they must have a good reason, right? Therefore I personally won't bother to look for reasons or evidence for my believing it too. And if anyone questions me I'll give them dirty looks and no research money.

"I'm not loquacious - I'm articulate!" "Yeah, like a lorry."
-Porridge

Things that annoy me.

This post is rather angry at times. There's more things I could mention, but the list goes on. I've been bombarded recently by too much stuff by ignorant, insecure people about equally ignorant, insecure people. There's also some more lighthearted ones in there.

The Two-Moron Principle adopted by most radio pop music programmes. Instead of employing one moronic DJ per show as in the past, they now give us two in a moronic crosstalk act. (Also the music content of such radio programmes.)

Frivolous artwork by self-important, talentless half-wits, erroneously touted as "unique" or "revolutionary" by pompous idiots (ostensibly "critics"). This applies as much to music, theatre, and film work as it does to painting, sculpture, etc.
(sketch by banksy, who has some amazing artwork on his website)

"Celebrity" chefs who invent perversely inedible dishes such as escargot pie and haddock-flavoured ice cream – and then charge gullible customers an additional fortune for having their plates dotted with spots of foam.

Houses with paranoid security lights that switch themselves on accusingly as you pass their front gates.

Newspaper or website writers who talk about their "mailbag".

PA announcements about delayed/cancelled flights that apologise for any inconvenience they "may" have caused.

The way police officers and chiefs always look and sound like idiots by trying to use big professional words in TV interviews.

Characters in Victorian TV/movie dramas who, when elated, punch the air and go "Yesssss!".

Guys in rusty '88 Supras or Trans Ams projecting a thudding beat from a sound system with more power than the engine.

Reality TV.

Shallow materialistic celebrities, and the desire most youth have to emulate them.

False experts who sound intelligent, but in reality are armed only with thesauruses and strong opinions. People who spout so knowingly about global warming exemplify the group. At least read the fucking literature before attempting to pass yourself off as an expert.

Speaking of which, the entire global warming panic. If you're on this bandwagon, open your mind and read some actual research (request it and I'll compile a comprehensive list of references). If you're helping to push the wagon, take a hard look at why, at who you're really supporting. Environmental interest groups are big money. Whether you realise it or not, you are using scare tactics to support a frenzy with little serious scientific backing, and it's frankly dangerous to society (for historical precedent, read about eugenics before WW2). The media, politicians, environmental groups, activists, and general public (for allowing ourselves to be swept along) alike are all to blame. See above for ways to remedy a lack of comprehension of environmental science and how it's in its infancy.

I guess it comes down to me being annoyed by shallow, materialistic, irrational, intolerant, stupid, change-fearing, money-grubbing, insecure people in general. Good God.

Thats the rant. Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow (or Friday). Including a new awesome photo contest and results from the last one. You'll love it.

tales of treachery, evil, and deceit

Joe wins again, and again its by default, but also because what he submitted is very funny. If it sucked I would have awarded him the loss and myself the win for outwitting you all with that photo. The device is some sort of solar powered thing; I should have put "click to enlarge" on the picture. I thought something along the lines of "Harper and security experts discuss how to diffuse a solar powered bomb planted by environmental extremists" could work. Or perhaps, noting the expression of the man standing at left, "Suddenly, Jim noticed the red digital timer counting backwards from 10 on the rather strange gift from the Liberals."

Anyway, here's the next one.
Click for big this time. I like the potential in this one.

I'm trying to get more bizarre photos that we can all have more fun with; these political ones are becoming uninteresting. To spice things up here's a couple of King Klein, premier of this insanely rich province for 13 years (it's easy to get re-elected in a time of great prosperity), who is now resigning to pursue other pursuits.
He's so photogenic. Submit captions for any or all photos.

On to the other topic of today's post... bitter hatred and warring between floor factions in the Earth Sciences building. There is one bathroom per sex per floor in this building, all situated directly across from the elevators and stairs. I'm on the 5th floor. So earlier this afternoon I went to use the bathroom, which is the sovereign territory of those most brave of 5th floor patriots. Now here's the way things went down, and pay attention cause the timing is critical. I relieve myself, flush, and head over to the sinks to wash my hands. I rinse off the soap, and head towards the paper towel dispenser. Before I reach it another guy enters the room and heads, initially, in my direction (I only hear him). I press the lever a couple of times and find that, as per the norm, there is no towel in the dispenser. There never is, I dunno why they even have them. They should dispense with them. Anyway, there's always a large roll sitting on a shelf by the door, at the other end of the bathroom, for us to use when there's nothing in the dispenser. So I turn around to go get some. As I do I catch a split second, a single frame, if you will, of buddy departing with the entire roll in hand, and then the door shuts. I paused, slightly baffled, then pursued this thief, enraged. As I exited the bathroom, drying my hands on my jeans and looking around angrily, I saw the doors close on one elevator and the door to the stairs close, at the same time. I rushed to the door to the stairs, but it was not the same person. Foiled!! To date, the mysterious paper towel snatcher from floors unknown has yet to be caught.

What gets me is that he knew to grab the stuff by the door because he saw and heard that there was none in the dispenser because I was there finding out for us both... and decided to screw me royally, along with the next people who wash their hands before checking for towel. It was blatant and offensive, and he's VERY lucky he escaped. The beatings would have been severe. The man is described as caucasian, about 6'1, large-ish, with a black leather jacket and blue jeans, and black hair, possibly with gel in it. Probably a treacherous geographer from the 3rd or 4th floor realm.

We'll send them a few faxes decrying this act and rubbishing their field of study. Memorize a few capital cities and learn a bit of surficial geology and you're a geographer. bah.

Let's get more than one person to suggest a caption this time. You all have senses of humour and wit... get cracking!

Thus ends post.

results of contest and new contest

[comment with your suggested caption please]

Greetings all, i.e. Joe and Shaggz. (related news: readership way down in September)

Not much to say this week, except that my Calgary friends and I have agreed that we are sick and tired of none of us having any link to a group of women we can socialise with. It is rather annoying, since we're all fed up with being single, although I know that the bachelor life would appeal to me again, if I was to become non-single. The grass on the other side of the fence is always greener, I guess.

Anyway photo captioning contest results. I probaby should have posted this last week as I'm certain that nobody in the world ever could come up with a caption to beat Joe's first suggestion, with regards to this picture (see last week's post). It's perfect. Joe does, of course win by default, since he's the only entrant (his entry frightened off other potential entrants, and frankly make my suggestions seem stupid). So I award victory to Hoph. Your parade through the streets of New York is postponed indefinitely due to an inexplicable lack of interest, and of course fire regulations (all that confetti that wouldn't be thrown for you would pose a fire hazard sitting in warehouses in bundles). You win a free hug, redeemable whenever I'm not around. More importantly you win bragging rights re your wittiness. But every week you must fight to retain those rights!

On to this week's photo that so desperately needs a caption (see above, in case somehow you missed it). It's very tempting to enter myself, but I must refrain from doing so, cause I may inadvertently come up with something good, unlikely though it is.

Have at it.

photo caption contest

the auto blog is up but I'm not giving out the address yet because the template is nothing like what I want it to be. The only post is an intro. I guess if you're really curious you could access it through my profile.

It was my birthday yesterday, and it was a relaxing day. The guys were thoroughly hungover from their camping trip, so were not up for partying. So instead we saw Crank. If you like the mindless action/violence genre, this is absolutely excellent. And in places totally hilarious. It's deliberately ridiculous at times, but that doesn't detract from the movie, on the contrary it's perfect. It's the same guy as the transporter movies (which I now have to watch) and from Snatch.

I have a class at two... it's glgy 707 for new grads: geology of western canada. Apparently it's very interesting, and it will be nice to meet some of the new grad students. So I gotta go to the bookstore for a clipboard and some looseleaf... very "back to school" of me.

By popular request (of Léon), I'm trying to come up with a new contest. It occurred to me that it could be a seinfeld-esque contest, but frankly I don't want to know about those things.

So instead we could have a photo captioning contest. This shot of Harper is rather good... points for wittiness and originality. I've decided to make this a regular feature of the blog, generally I'll use politicians, but any bizarre photo I come across could do. Feel free to send me ones (or links to ones) you feel could be fun.
Suggested caption to get you going:
Stephen Harper seeks US president George Bush, with whom he is playing a game of 'hide and go seek'.

or perhaps simply:
"Harper looks forward."

Results whenever I feel we've had as much response as we're going to get.

back to blog life

hoi hoi lowly mortals.

I have returned! Triumphant and glorious and honourable it is. The flights were fine, this time there weren't 18 screaming babies in the seats around me, just one girl behind me who had altitude sickness, but mercifully she refrained from projectile vomiting over the seat and onto my laptop. In fact she wasn't sick at all.

Also, for the first time ever I was able to see, by craning my neck to look rearwards out of the window, the contrail forming from the engine exhaust gases. This was because for the first time I was towards the back of a plane and we were heading towards the setting sun (which illuminated the contrail). It was basically an orange-tinted wisp of cloud, but very thin and moving backwards at tremendous speed.

Anyway I've been screwed over by the fees office... thankfully the department financial secretary is great and helped to sort things out, but I still had to go to the fees office, on the friday of the weekend before classes begin, to pay the $70 I owed. It was a nasty lineup but I just took a number (why doesn't UNB use that system?) and went back an hour later. Then a half hour after that. Then finally I had to wait another 45 minutes for it to go from number 332 to 335. So all in all not a productive afternoon.

But on to far more interesting topics, like my grand plans for the web. I plan to shock and amaze all with my forthcoming NEW BLOG (and subsidiary glossary blog like Thérèse has). Many of you will not give a tinker's cuss about the new blog, but never fear, grumball will still exist and be my main life-update one (and posting place for amusing pictures, and for whatever else I feel like, as usual). The new one will be updated less frequently but it will take some time to construct the glossary anyway. It's really very simple: this is going to be about cars. In particular, cars that I plan to test drive this fall, and perhaps news about cars that are soon to be unleashed upon the market. The posts may get technical, hence the need for a glossary, but I'll be sure to write in such a way that any barely-literate person could understand it. eg: "car go fast". Perhaps that'll be the title of the first post, which does indeed reflect my opinion of the vehicle I tested in freddytown two weeks ago. I'll be trying to show as objectively as possible the benefits vs cost of each car. I'm toying with the idea of a rating system that works by judging the features of the car versus the cost.

At present I have no intention of acquiring a car for myself. Just testing a bunch of awesome ones for fun.

Anyway I'll be continuing to check up on the blogs of y'all, so long as they're not just blogs of yore.