Parole Officer
Hi kid--I remember you; you ratted out the taggers after all that graffiti from grad night last year, right? Still walking home the long way?
So, parole officer, huh? I think your path might be something like this:
You’ll take one of those criminal justice programs because they promise great jobs but really, it’s a scam. When you strike out job hunting afterwards, you’ll realize you shouldn’t make your college choices based on ads that pop up on facebook.
Then you’ll suck it up and get a degree in social work with some law courses thrown in. You’ll be accepted into a internship program job shadowing a 20-year veteran of the parole gig, and you’ll quickly volunteer to drive, since going from appointment to appointment in his 15 year old Jetta filled with the detritus of a pathetic, lonely life is an assault to too many of your senses.
Your mentor lives on coffee and cigarettes, and revels in sharing horror stories that make you shudder. By this time he’s lost any ideals he may have once had about the job and his goal is to put in the last six years before his pension while making as few waves as possible.
You swear to yourself you’ll never be like him. You steel yourself against the nervousness that comes from daily exposure to hardened criminals who see parole officers as snitches for the state, and wonder about taking karate lessons.
You graduate from the program; then look for work. The problem with your chosen profession is that it doesn’t pay enough to live in a larger city, and most small towns don’t have full time parole jobs. It means that you’ll either end up living in a crappy studio apartment in a sketchy part of the city, or commuting for 90 minutes each way to your home in the distant suburbs.
Starting out is even worse; you settle for the only work you can find--you go on call as a substitute parole officer. There is plenty of work, since you are replacing people who call in sick as often as they can get away with it. That will be fun--cold calling felons and never knowing which are the truly dangerous psychos.
There are a few scary moments, and your nose is broken once or twice, but you survive. Your lucky break comes when your former mentor is killed by friends of an irate con who was sent back to prison for parole violations, and you get the dead guy's job.
You throw yourself into your assignment with the best of intentions, but soon the constant frustration of trying to talk employers out of firing irresponsible, dysfunctional ex-cons wears you down. You dread checking your voicemail when every day there’s another call from an irate landlord wanting to know what you’re going to do about the latest outrage committed by one of your charges.
After five years you’re ready to quit when you meet Miranda. Up to this time, you hadn’t had much success dating--seems your crappy home and income didn’t impress, and your job-induced depression wasn’t attractive, either. Miranda, though, is something different. You’re struck by her simple beauty and charmed by her British accent. She’s so different from all the other cons you’ve worked with, and you can hardly believe this refined, delicate girl could be a criminal.
You remember to shave and wear a tie on days you’re meeting with her, and you work extra hard to find her a decent apartment; in fact, you get the manager of your building to let her have the suite above yours. She repays you by cooking you the occasional dinner, or dropping by with tea after you’ve had a bad day.
During one of these visits she tells you her life story, filling in the details not recorded in her file. Swept up in a romance with an older man shortly after she finished high school, she was already in love with him before she realized he was a con man. Soon she became his partner, and the two of them fleeced seniors of their savings across half the continent. When, after three years, they were caught, the twenty-four year old Miranda agreed to testify against her lover for a reduced sentence.
Somehow you rationalize crossing the line in your relationship with her, and feel no shame as you write her one great report after another. Her parole ends, and you give her a glowing reference that helps her land a job as a personal care attendant. It’s not the most pleasant work, but the job market for ex-cons isn’t very forgiving.
Her work schedule keeps her out many evenings, you tell yourself, and totally smitten, you don’t notice she’s pulling back. She seems grateful for your help, though, like when you arrange to fast track her application to have her criminal record expunged. Still, eventually you realize things aren’t right; you are hurt when she’s never answers your calls or messages, and you get angry when you see her bring home the attractive son of her personal care client.
You throw yourself back into your work and try to ignore your broken heart. Six months later, she calls you. You’re elated when she asks you out for a drink, and then admits to her affair with the wealthy young man you spotted her with. It’s over, she promises, and she wants to reconnect with you. You don’t think to question her motives, and she waits a couple of weeks before springing her special request.
She wants you to help free Neville, her old boyfriend. He’s facing a parole hearing and hasn’t been an ideal inmate. You're shocked at first, but she explains that she feels guilty because his sick father is dying alone back in England, and since she helped put Neville behind bars, she’d like to help make sure he’s there for his father’s final moments.
You’re still too in love to use good judgment, and you arrange to be on Neville’s parole review panel. You cross the line even further; you sneak into the office late one evening and remove all the negative reports from Neville’s file. It works like a charm, and he’s freed. The next night he joins you and Miranda for dinner--his “going away party”, she explains. You are uncomfortable, and you notice they seem to be looking at each other more often than you’d like. You end up drinking too much, and wake up the next morning in your apartment, alone.
You discover your wallet has been emptied of your credit cards, and your cell phone is missing. You convince the landlord to let you into Miranda’s apartment, only to discover she’s bolted. You do bit more investigating and find that Neville’s parents are both living happily in England, and he has not boarded any flights--at least not using his own name.
The next three months are miserable, but only a prologue to the real tragedy. Neville and Miranda are identified as the perpetrators of a scam that swindled several hundred thousand dollars from an Atlanta-based charity for terminally ill children. Authorities begin digging into their histories, and before long your collusion in Neville’s premature release is revealed.
Your conspiracy conviction results in a sentence of three years. Hopefully, your former clients won’t be waiting with scores to settle, and with luck, you’ll one day have a parole officer of your very own.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Quiznos is creepy
A flier announcing double deals from Quiznos arrived at our house last week. If you looked closely, you saw this on the bottom of it:
Really, Quiznos? If you had just said "double your pleasure", my mind wouldn't have gone there, but clearly, the ad folks at Quiznos have theirs in the gutter. What's next? There was something else meant by "double your pleasure" with those Doublemint twins commercials?
I'm very disillusioned right now.
Really, Quiznos? If you had just said "double your pleasure", my mind wouldn't have gone there, but clearly, the ad folks at Quiznos have theirs in the gutter. What's next? There was something else meant by "double your pleasure" with those Doublemint twins commercials?
I'm very disillusioned right now.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Cool video
It will featured a lot on tv all over the world in the next two months, but here's some pretty cool timelapse footage of Vancouver that's worth a look.
Oh, and if you want to come by this part of the world, it's also worth a visit, once the Olympics are gone.
I've posted the link rather than the video because until I get around to figuring out how to widen my text area, it cuts off 16:9 videos.
Go see it here.
Oh, and if you want to come by this part of the world, it's also worth a visit, once the Olympics are gone.
I've posted the link rather than the video because until I get around to figuring out how to widen my text area, it cuts off 16:9 videos.
Go see it here.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a
Soundtrack Composer
Hi kid--I'll be with you in just a sec, just need to finish this email.
Say, you mind? That humming is kind of irritating. Okay, I'm ready--so what's your life plan? Soundtrack composer? Figure you'll be the next John Williams, huh? Let me think...
So, you must be taking music classes and stuff, right? Good, that's all part of what will get you that first gig, maybe creating a theme for some cheesy college video assignment, or a jingle for one of those bad pawn shop commercials on the late late movie. Of course, you'll have to have another job, because you won't really get paid much for your ditties.
I mean, maybe it was tough for guys like Mancini or Williams, but I bet they stuck it out too. Or maybe it wasn't. You'll still have your work cut out for you. You'll send compositions to dozens of production companies, and you'll post your stuff on web sites as well. You'll be pretty frustrated when nobody from Paramount or anywhere else gives you a call.
Soon you're having fits of rage watching TV. You know you could write better stuff than that lame 80s synth line that defines not one but all three Law and Order shows. And then there are those CSI themes; they wouldn't even hire somebody to write them something, they just went to somebody's old classic rock collection and then paid to get the rights to songs written decades ago.
You begin recording shows and then composing your own themes to replace the crappy stuff they used, and then send in samples to the producers. Soon you find yourself looking not just on TV, but for soundtrack opportunities in your everyday life, and you start carrying around a small synth with headphones to play the soundtrack to your trips downtown.
"Junkies Urinating Back in the Alley" is one of your favorites, though it lacks the poignancy of "Mortgage Loan Turned Down Again". You'd try playing these for your friends, but by this time, most aren't returning your calls, having been embarrassed too many times by your outbursts at movie theaters and restaurants, mocking their predictable and derivative music.
It's this practice of wandering around composing themes as you observe life that gives you what you believe is your greatest stroke of genius: a way to make a living from your talent. You create "Songs of your Life", a business which offers to provide soundtracks to the events of people's lives. You can't understand why your phone isn't immediately ringing off the hook once you begin leaf-letting the neighborhood with news of your brainstorm, and you are rude to those people who call you, asking if you can write a nice song for Auntie Mabel's funeral, or a little something for Jacob's bar mitzvah.
"You don't get it--I'm not writing songs to entertain your guests at some event; I'm making music to paint the colors of your moments!" Most people don't stay on the line long enough to hear the rest.
Fine, you decide. You'll show them; then they'll understand. You park up at lovers' lane with speakers on the roof of your Firefly and play your original romantic theme for teenage lovers. This gets you a few hours down at the precinct explaining that you're not some sort of creepy voyeur.
Then you're nearly mobbed by angry parents when your circus-like theme for their kids' little league team adds to the embarrassment of an 11-2 drubbing.
You're getting desperate, and you decide on a plan after drinking for several hours--one that will make your music famous as the defining memory of an unforgettable moment.
You buy some explosives from a crack-addicted demolitions worker and sneak into a local office building. You pick three spots on the third floor and plant bombs in strategic locations. Then you hijack the muzak-playing sound system and begin the subtle, ominous overtones you hope will become as iconic as the two-note terror so many recognize as the Jaws theme.
The employees don't notice it at first--collection agency employees are not the most aesthetically-aware bunch--but then a few begin asking what the hell is up with the weird stuff on the speakers. At that moment you detonate the first bomb. They are terrified, and after the dust settles begin making their disorderly way toward the stairs that haven't been blocked by debris.
Your music crescendos with greater foreboding, and you set off the second device. This one injures a few of them, though not mortally, and the sprinkler system adds a new cadence to your masterpiece. You now crank your synth full volume, and feel the music terrorize the office workers the way "Ride of the Valkyries" frightened those poor Vietnamese villagers in the only movie whose soundtrack you respect.
You wait until enough staff have made it to the stairwell with intact memories of your work before timing the third explosion to match the climax of your composition. Unfortunately, in your eagerness to see the effect of your music on your victims you stationed yourself too close to the final bomb site, and this, coupled with your lack of expertise in explosives, results in your greatest theme becoming also your own requiem.
Two months after your death the producers of "Three and a Half Men" will send you an offer of 50 thousand dollars to purchase your replacement for their horrible theme. Your parents will end up using the money to help underwrite the realization of your cousin's dream of starting a polka band. Sadly, they'll tell everyone you would have wanted it that way.
Hi kid--I'll be with you in just a sec, just need to finish this email.
Say, you mind? That humming is kind of irritating. Okay, I'm ready--so what's your life plan? Soundtrack composer? Figure you'll be the next John Williams, huh? Let me think...
So, you must be taking music classes and stuff, right? Good, that's all part of what will get you that first gig, maybe creating a theme for some cheesy college video assignment, or a jingle for one of those bad pawn shop commercials on the late late movie. Of course, you'll have to have another job, because you won't really get paid much for your ditties.
I mean, maybe it was tough for guys like Mancini or Williams, but I bet they stuck it out too. Or maybe it wasn't. You'll still have your work cut out for you. You'll send compositions to dozens of production companies, and you'll post your stuff on web sites as well. You'll be pretty frustrated when nobody from Paramount or anywhere else gives you a call.
Soon you're having fits of rage watching TV. You know you could write better stuff than that lame 80s synth line that defines not one but all three Law and Order shows. And then there are those CSI themes; they wouldn't even hire somebody to write them something, they just went to somebody's old classic rock collection and then paid to get the rights to songs written decades ago.
You begin recording shows and then composing your own themes to replace the crappy stuff they used, and then send in samples to the producers. Soon you find yourself looking not just on TV, but for soundtrack opportunities in your everyday life, and you start carrying around a small synth with headphones to play the soundtrack to your trips downtown.
"Junkies Urinating Back in the Alley" is one of your favorites, though it lacks the poignancy of "Mortgage Loan Turned Down Again". You'd try playing these for your friends, but by this time, most aren't returning your calls, having been embarrassed too many times by your outbursts at movie theaters and restaurants, mocking their predictable and derivative music.
It's this practice of wandering around composing themes as you observe life that gives you what you believe is your greatest stroke of genius: a way to make a living from your talent. You create "Songs of your Life", a business which offers to provide soundtracks to the events of people's lives. You can't understand why your phone isn't immediately ringing off the hook once you begin leaf-letting the neighborhood with news of your brainstorm, and you are rude to those people who call you, asking if you can write a nice song for Auntie Mabel's funeral, or a little something for Jacob's bar mitzvah.
"You don't get it--I'm not writing songs to entertain your guests at some event; I'm making music to paint the colors of your moments!" Most people don't stay on the line long enough to hear the rest.
Fine, you decide. You'll show them; then they'll understand. You park up at lovers' lane with speakers on the roof of your Firefly and play your original romantic theme for teenage lovers. This gets you a few hours down at the precinct explaining that you're not some sort of creepy voyeur.
Then you're nearly mobbed by angry parents when your circus-like theme for their kids' little league team adds to the embarrassment of an 11-2 drubbing.
You're getting desperate, and you decide on a plan after drinking for several hours--one that will make your music famous as the defining memory of an unforgettable moment.
You buy some explosives from a crack-addicted demolitions worker and sneak into a local office building. You pick three spots on the third floor and plant bombs in strategic locations. Then you hijack the muzak-playing sound system and begin the subtle, ominous overtones you hope will become as iconic as the two-note terror so many recognize as the Jaws theme.
The employees don't notice it at first--collection agency employees are not the most aesthetically-aware bunch--but then a few begin asking what the hell is up with the weird stuff on the speakers. At that moment you detonate the first bomb. They are terrified, and after the dust settles begin making their disorderly way toward the stairs that haven't been blocked by debris.
Your music crescendos with greater foreboding, and you set off the second device. This one injures a few of them, though not mortally, and the sprinkler system adds a new cadence to your masterpiece. You now crank your synth full volume, and feel the music terrorize the office workers the way "Ride of the Valkyries" frightened those poor Vietnamese villagers in the only movie whose soundtrack you respect.
You wait until enough staff have made it to the stairwell with intact memories of your work before timing the third explosion to match the climax of your composition. Unfortunately, in your eagerness to see the effect of your music on your victims you stationed yourself too close to the final bomb site, and this, coupled with your lack of expertise in explosives, results in your greatest theme becoming also your own requiem.
Two months after your death the producers of "Three and a Half Men" will send you an offer of 50 thousand dollars to purchase your replacement for their horrible theme. Your parents will end up using the money to help underwrite the realization of your cousin's dream of starting a polka band. Sadly, they'll tell everyone you would have wanted it that way.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Happy New Year!
I won't bother putting a lot of resolutions here; they usually look much the same from year to year anyway. This time last year I was shocked to discover my actual weight, so I resolved to lose 20 pounds and ended up losing 22 in 12 weeks. This year I find I've gained about 10 back, so my target's a bit lower.
I won't promise to blog more, since we're moving into a crazy busy time with show prep and semester end, but I do have some thoughts about content of the blog I might resolve to keep. We'll see.
There seems to be a media blackout on a sad local story from last week. Within a mile of our house somebody crashed into a power pole at 3:00 a.m. New Years day, probably on the way home from a party, and likely alcohol was involved.
The driver was the only occupant of the car, as far as the reports indicate, and was killed. The police wouldn't give any details, even the gender of the driver.
Then, a couple of days ago, my son shows me a few facebook pages--a guy who graduated from his school in '08 posts on New Years eve he's going out drinking, and then the next day there are posts about losing him that indicate he has died. Considering he's from this part of town, I suspect he's the one from the accident.
I know the stuff my son found on facebook about this has impacted him, and he wanted to talk about it with me. I'm sorry for the family who've lost this young man, but if it's a straightforward case of death from drinking and driving, I wonder why they would keep it hushed up when it has the power to help drive home the message once more to an at-risk population?
On a lighter note--do you have any resolutions for the New Year?
I won't promise to blog more, since we're moving into a crazy busy time with show prep and semester end, but I do have some thoughts about content of the blog I might resolve to keep. We'll see.
There seems to be a media blackout on a sad local story from last week. Within a mile of our house somebody crashed into a power pole at 3:00 a.m. New Years day, probably on the way home from a party, and likely alcohol was involved.
The driver was the only occupant of the car, as far as the reports indicate, and was killed. The police wouldn't give any details, even the gender of the driver.
Then, a couple of days ago, my son shows me a few facebook pages--a guy who graduated from his school in '08 posts on New Years eve he's going out drinking, and then the next day there are posts about losing him that indicate he has died. Considering he's from this part of town, I suspect he's the one from the accident.
I know the stuff my son found on facebook about this has impacted him, and he wanted to talk about it with me. I'm sorry for the family who've lost this young man, but if it's a straightforward case of death from drinking and driving, I wonder why they would keep it hushed up when it has the power to help drive home the message once more to an at-risk population?
On a lighter note--do you have any resolutions for the New Year?
Monday, December 28, 2009
Olympic Primer - Part Two
Tickets
The great winter showcase of amateur sport charges fans prices no amateur could ever afford to pay. Of course, some sports are more in demand than others. Hockey tickets will be by far the most coveted, but the problem is that no one knows for sure which teams will be playing in a particular semifinal or final game. Should Team Canada bow out before the medal round, look for thousands of tickets to suddenly become available.
There are a few other sports which can garner huge prices for tickets that are legally scalped on the authorized VANOC site. Figure skating is probably second, after hockey, in popularity among winter olympic sports in this part of the world.
VANOC is the company created to put on these games, and are essentially folks appointed by the powers that be to try to make the various levels of government look good. In return, the provincial government will make sure it appears that the Olympics don't bankrupt our children's future by saddling us with decades of debt.
They do this in a variety of ways, like being petty about sponsorship and Olympic logo copyright. For example, their legal team went after (unsuccessfully) a Vancouver Greek restaurant with "Olympic" in its name--just because the restaurant had been operating with the name for 40+ years didn't mean that they should be allowed to keep it.
Then there's the use of our tax dollars to indirectly prop up the games. Sure, billions of tax dollars are going directly into the game venues, security, highway and other upgrades, but there's more than that. Three provincial crown monopolies: ICBC (insurance), BC Hydro, and BC Lotto have bought 1.4 million dollars worth of Olympic tickets. BC Hydro is spending over a quarter million dollars to book a luxury suite for all 33 hockey games in GM Place. (Which will be named "Canada Hockey Place" during the run of the games.)
Funny how there's money for this, while millions have been cut from health care and education this year.
VANOC has set up a website for ticket resales. It's legal to scalp tickets in BC, but when you buy your tickets, there's a bit of legalese you agree to that states that no one but VANOC can resell them for more than face value. Want tickets to the gold medal hockey game? At one point last week (when the article I read was written) the cheapest pair of tickets for the men's gold medal final available were listed at $4444.00. There were a pair of better tickets on sale for $9998.00.
I'm sure if you want biathalon (ski, shoot, ski some more, shoot some more event) tickets they're cheaper, but when you figure in inflated hotel costs, there is no way regular folks can afford to see these games live.
The great winter showcase of amateur sport charges fans prices no amateur could ever afford to pay. Of course, some sports are more in demand than others. Hockey tickets will be by far the most coveted, but the problem is that no one knows for sure which teams will be playing in a particular semifinal or final game. Should Team Canada bow out before the medal round, look for thousands of tickets to suddenly become available.
There are a few other sports which can garner huge prices for tickets that are legally scalped on the authorized VANOC site. Figure skating is probably second, after hockey, in popularity among winter olympic sports in this part of the world.
VANOC is the company created to put on these games, and are essentially folks appointed by the powers that be to try to make the various levels of government look good. In return, the provincial government will make sure it appears that the Olympics don't bankrupt our children's future by saddling us with decades of debt.
They do this in a variety of ways, like being petty about sponsorship and Olympic logo copyright. For example, their legal team went after (unsuccessfully) a Vancouver Greek restaurant with "Olympic" in its name--just because the restaurant had been operating with the name for 40+ years didn't mean that they should be allowed to keep it.
Then there's the use of our tax dollars to indirectly prop up the games. Sure, billions of tax dollars are going directly into the game venues, security, highway and other upgrades, but there's more than that. Three provincial crown monopolies: ICBC (insurance), BC Hydro, and BC Lotto have bought 1.4 million dollars worth of Olympic tickets. BC Hydro is spending over a quarter million dollars to book a luxury suite for all 33 hockey games in GM Place. (Which will be named "Canada Hockey Place" during the run of the games.)
Funny how there's money for this, while millions have been cut from health care and education this year.
VANOC has set up a website for ticket resales. It's legal to scalp tickets in BC, but when you buy your tickets, there's a bit of legalese you agree to that states that no one but VANOC can resell them for more than face value. Want tickets to the gold medal hockey game? At one point last week (when the article I read was written) the cheapest pair of tickets for the men's gold medal final available were listed at $4444.00. There were a pair of better tickets on sale for $9998.00.
I'm sure if you want biathalon (ski, shoot, ski some more, shoot some more event) tickets they're cheaper, but when you figure in inflated hotel costs, there is no way regular folks can afford to see these games live.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Olympic Primer - An Introduction
Since the world's attention is turning this way in the next little while, I thought I'd offer some background for those of you not fortunate enough to inhabit this part of our globe. (the unofficial version)
I thought it might be worthwhile since my counter tells me I've had recent visitors from: the U.S., Honduras, Ireland, France, Venezuela, Hungary, the Philippines, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the U.K., South Africa, Korea, Greece, India, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Russia, the Netherlands, Italy and Namibia.
So for now we'll start with
Part One - Whistler
On NBC, you'll probably hear reference to "Whistler Village" but it's rarely called anything but Whistler in this part of the world. The population of Whistler is officially 10,000 (or so) but during ski season there can be a lot more people there.
Whistler's development really got going in the early 80s when Nancy Greene (Olympic gold and silver medalist in Grenoble in '68, plus a number of world cup titles) and her husband began flogging it as they themselves opened a resort there. There was a fair bit of government money that went into the development of Whistler in the 70s and 80s, much to the chagrin of other mountains in the province which were not being tax-funded and were struggling during some years with fairly bad ski conditions.
In fact, Whistler was offered the 1976 Winter Olympics when Denver, originally scheduled to host them, declined due to financial issues, but the government at the time didn't want to be saddled with potential financial disaster (the '76 Montreal Olympics were clearly showing that to be a distinct possibility) so they were held in Innsbruck, Austria that year.
Whistler is a playground for the rich. It is not generally a mountain that those on a budget can enjoy during peak season. Three or four-day lift passes for adults this time of year run $278, compared to Mount Washington where a full day adult pass is $61 or a half-day is $46. Mount Washington is here on the island and actually has more snow than Whistler. Silver Star in the Okanagan is $71 per day, and of course, Aspen, Colorado is generally more.
But it's not lift tickets that hurt as much as the overall cost of staying at Whistler. For Mt. Washington, there are reasonable accomodations available at the bottom of the mountain in the Comox Valley, but with Whistler, if you want to get in a decent day's skiing, you pretty much need to stay there for a night at least. That means if you have an AAA membership, you can get a nightly rate at the Delta hotel of $360. (yes, the Canadian dollar is worth less, if you qualify for that discount it will only be $343 U.S.
Those who live there don't need to worry about such problems; if you want to buy a condo to enjoy Whistler every ski season, it will run you about a half-million for a 800 square ft. condo:
http://www.propertiesinwhistler.com/whistler-homes/index.php?&page=3
Of course, during the Olympics, posted hotel rates are meaningless. There will be no vacancies; there haven't been for quite a while. Those who have even tiny rooms for rent can make a killing as people scramble for accomodations once they've managed to luck into Olympic tickets.
Tickets. That's a story for next time.
I thought it might be worthwhile since my counter tells me I've had recent visitors from: the U.S., Honduras, Ireland, France, Venezuela, Hungary, the Philippines, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the U.K., South Africa, Korea, Greece, India, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Russia, the Netherlands, Italy and Namibia.
So for now we'll start with
Part One - Whistler
On NBC, you'll probably hear reference to "Whistler Village" but it's rarely called anything but Whistler in this part of the world. The population of Whistler is officially 10,000 (or so) but during ski season there can be a lot more people there.
Whistler's development really got going in the early 80s when Nancy Greene (Olympic gold and silver medalist in Grenoble in '68, plus a number of world cup titles) and her husband began flogging it as they themselves opened a resort there. There was a fair bit of government money that went into the development of Whistler in the 70s and 80s, much to the chagrin of other mountains in the province which were not being tax-funded and were struggling during some years with fairly bad ski conditions.
In fact, Whistler was offered the 1976 Winter Olympics when Denver, originally scheduled to host them, declined due to financial issues, but the government at the time didn't want to be saddled with potential financial disaster (the '76 Montreal Olympics were clearly showing that to be a distinct possibility) so they were held in Innsbruck, Austria that year.
Whistler is a playground for the rich. It is not generally a mountain that those on a budget can enjoy during peak season. Three or four-day lift passes for adults this time of year run $278, compared to Mount Washington where a full day adult pass is $61 or a half-day is $46. Mount Washington is here on the island and actually has more snow than Whistler. Silver Star in the Okanagan is $71 per day, and of course, Aspen, Colorado is generally more.
But it's not lift tickets that hurt as much as the overall cost of staying at Whistler. For Mt. Washington, there are reasonable accomodations available at the bottom of the mountain in the Comox Valley, but with Whistler, if you want to get in a decent day's skiing, you pretty much need to stay there for a night at least. That means if you have an AAA membership, you can get a nightly rate at the Delta hotel of $360. (yes, the Canadian dollar is worth less, if you qualify for that discount it will only be $343 U.S.
Those who live there don't need to worry about such problems; if you want to buy a condo to enjoy Whistler every ski season, it will run you about a half-million for a 800 square ft. condo:
http://www.propertiesinwhistler.com/whistler-homes/index.php?&page=3
Of course, during the Olympics, posted hotel rates are meaningless. There will be no vacancies; there haven't been for quite a while. Those who have even tiny rooms for rent can make a killing as people scramble for accomodations once they've managed to luck into Olympic tickets.
Tickets. That's a story for next time.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Facebook Creeping for the Greater Good
Last Christmas, my dad didn't bother with the subscriptions Mom used to buy us each year to a major publication known for heartwarming stories and condensed books--we'd all decided it had become too insipid and slipped from inspiring tales of everyday people to something more like People magazine with its increasing focus on pop culture icons.
Then they sent us the gift subscriptions in Mom and Dad's name anyway--same with my sisters. He decided to pay for them, path of least resistance, I guess. He quit paying for his own, though, figuring they'd just stop sending them.
They didn't. They did start sending him nagging letters demanding payment for magazines he didn't want. By this fall I told him I'd deal with it. I wrote the magazine, directing my strongly-worded letter to the name at the bottom of these repetitive annoyance mailings.
That was October 1. I made it clear: no more money was coming from my dad, and no more subscriptions were wanted.
Then, a week and a half ago, we get a card notifiying us my parents had given us another gift subscription. No--Mom always bought those and she died in February. Apparently, though, to this great magazine (so great the american side of the company is in bankruptcy protection) even telling them by letter won't stop their negative billing campaign.
So, last weekend I found what I had bookmarked back when I searched (unsuccessfully) for email addresses for people in the publication to make sure they knew we were opting out. (I guess email addresses would make it easier for people to tell them to stop sending them unwanted crap.)
I had researched the guy whose name appeared on all those statements. He was real, and fortunately, before Facebook changed all the privacy settings, I figured out which one of several guys with the same name was actually him.
I sent him a facebook message. I copied the wording from my previous letter and made a bit of a threat about going to the media about their harassment of a bereaved senior citizen at Christmas time.
Within a few hours I had a return message. He would get someone on it on Monday. He was true to his word. The email apology came from that person with assurances they wouldn't bug my dad any more.
Score one for facebook creeping.
Then they sent us the gift subscriptions in Mom and Dad's name anyway--same with my sisters. He decided to pay for them, path of least resistance, I guess. He quit paying for his own, though, figuring they'd just stop sending them.
They didn't. They did start sending him nagging letters demanding payment for magazines he didn't want. By this fall I told him I'd deal with it. I wrote the magazine, directing my strongly-worded letter to the name at the bottom of these repetitive annoyance mailings.
That was October 1. I made it clear: no more money was coming from my dad, and no more subscriptions were wanted.
Then, a week and a half ago, we get a card notifiying us my parents had given us another gift subscription. No--Mom always bought those and she died in February. Apparently, though, to this great magazine (so great the american side of the company is in bankruptcy protection) even telling them by letter won't stop their negative billing campaign.
So, last weekend I found what I had bookmarked back when I searched (unsuccessfully) for email addresses for people in the publication to make sure they knew we were opting out. (I guess email addresses would make it easier for people to tell them to stop sending them unwanted crap.)
I had researched the guy whose name appeared on all those statements. He was real, and fortunately, before Facebook changed all the privacy settings, I figured out which one of several guys with the same name was actually him.
I sent him a facebook message. I copied the wording from my previous letter and made a bit of a threat about going to the media about their harassment of a bereaved senior citizen at Christmas time.
Within a few hours I had a return message. He would get someone on it on Monday. He was true to his word. The email apology came from that person with assurances they wouldn't bug my dad any more.
Score one for facebook creeping.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
It's that time of year
...when there are lots and lots of concerts and performances going on. This is a clip from an excellent music concert at my son's school a couple of weeks ago. (He's on piano in this one.) I've always liked this arrangement of Ode to Joy--now they just have to add some movement to complement the singing.
My daughter won't be attending her concert tomorrow--she wasn't feeling great this afternoon, and as we were on our way home a bit early from school, my wife called to tell us my father-in-law had just passed away.
It's a bit tough at this time of year, and hard on the kids to lose a second grandparent this year, but he was ready, and there will be lots of family and love around the next while to comfort my mother-in-law.
More clips and stuff to come soon, I hope.
Friday, December 11, 2009
The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a
Sports Collectibles Dealer
Yeah, kid, I've seen your Reggie Jackson rookie card. You've shown it to everybody in the school about half a dozen times, now. No, I don't know when lunch will be over--why don't you go out and pla... er, show some people outside your baseball card?
No, it's my lunchtime too. Really? I've told her a hundred times not to book my lunch... oh, what the hell. Just keep that it away from this pastrami; you could cut the value of that card pretty quickly with my lunch all over it.
So what's the plan? Really? You want to trade cards like this for a living? I don't care if your uncle says sports collectibles are hot right now, I think it may go like this:
You'll have to hit up your uncle and everyone else you're related to for a start-up loan. You'll get an incredibly small space up in a mall like that one by the airport. You'll spend weeks building your initial stock by buying everything that seems undervalued on Ebay and elsewhere online. You'll read the obituary pages faithfully, looking for estates of sports fans who might have the occasional autographed baseball or signed jersey.
Even though you advertise your grand opening in collectors' magazines, on their websites and in all the local papers, the public is lukewarm to your business. Collectibles are a luxury, and in tough times people don't bother with that framed uniform or historic home run ball. Plus, you've only got the budget to stock C list collectibles anyway.
Still, you eke out a living by working every moment the store is open, thus hiring as few staff as possible. It's a stressful existence, though; you're always barely ahead of your creditors and all it will take is one stroke of bad luck to destroy your dream.
You scramble to find quality collectibles and eventually agree to a deal with a sketchy "collectibles acquisition agent" who goes to major sporting events and athlete appearances and harasses stars to sign all manner of sports clothing and memorabilia. You know some such agents use sketchy tactics like lying about sick kids to get donations, but you try to ignore your pangs of conscience when new items are sent in. Eventually you figure out the acquisition agent is taking such a big cut you're not making enough from the deal to bother renewing it after the first year.
Then you get a bit lucky. That cousin of yours--what's her name, Tessa?--the one who wants to be a Budweiser girl, agrees to come and work for you on weekends. What? Oh, yeah, she's been in here to share that little dream before. My guess is she'll be available when you need a temp. employee just the same.
She attracts collectible geeks like Star Trek conventioneers are drawn to, well, any female that will talk to them. Your weekend business picks up, and eventually you feel confident enough to leave her in charge so you can run a booth at a collectible convention in Dallas.
You learn a lot that weekend. Simply put, you have plenty of time to study your more successful competitors since virtually no one comes to your boring booth, and you take notes. The ones who have the biggest crowds offer either hot girls or sports celebrities.
The following month you take Tessa with you to another convention, and she helps you make enough to cover your convention merchant fees. Still, you realize a celebrity would draw even more people, and fortuitously, an agent drops his business card off at your booth and offers to help make that happen.
He's a representative of an agency who offer a stable of more than 200 ex-athletes from nearly every major sport, and when you call him he faxes you a list of stars with their appearance fees listed beside each one.
One in particular catches your eye. He's a well-known former major league batting star, famous not only for his home run and RBI stats, but also because of the controversy that erupted when his use of steroids was exposed. Despite his slightly tarnished reputation, you know he'll bring in fans, eager to meet someone so well known. You're surprised that he seems underpriced, so you decide to call the agent and book him.
The deal is completed, pending the bank's approval of your extending your line of credit to help cover the appearance fee. The bank manager hears the name of the ball player and smiles, agreeing to help provided you'll get his son an autographed ball.
Everything seems fine, and you excitedly arrange advertising and promotions to let everyone know who's coming to your store the following weekend. You even get a plug on a local sportcast when one of their reporters drops by to ask about the upcoming visit, though you're disappointed when the reporter and cameraman decide that Tessa would be a better choice to appear on air.
Sure enough, the publicity works, and when the limo you hired shows up in front of the store to deliver your guest, there are close to four hundred people waiting for a peek. The star athlete stumbles as he disembarks, then curses loudly, pulls a can of beer out of his pocket, and takes a long swig.
"Let's party!" he yells, and with a sinking feeling you realize that maybe there was a reason for his discount fee.
The rest of the afternoon is about damage control. You apologize for his crude comments to female customers and try to focus his energies on signing items for fans who are growing rapidly disenchanted with the drunken lout.
At one point he disappears into the bathroom, and finally after 15 minutes you go looking for him, only to find him passed out. You call a cab and try to get him out of the store, but he's discovered Tessa and insists she needs to go for a ride with him.
She's probably worked at a few places by this time that have given her relevant experience in dealing with drunken admirers, and she slickly twists out of the cab after the semi-conscious celebrity is buckled in. You sigh with both relief and despair as you watch him disappear.
The results of the day are mixed; you sold more merchandise than usual, though not quite enough to cover the appearance fee, and a local bar owner, impressed by Tessa's acumen in dealing with the athlete, hires her as his manager, depriving your store of the one thing that kept some customers coming in.
A couple of sports writers pen scathing editorials about the horrible example set by your guest, and letters to the editor from outraged parents complement their efforts.
You manage to clear out enough merchandise by having a "blow out sale" to cover your obligations to the bank, but you're on thinner financial ice than ever.
The final blow will come when a number of your collectibles are exposed in a fraud investigation as counterfeits. Apparently your sketchy acquisition agent went beyond finding collectibles, he also liked to invent some of them. Dozens of angry customers return to demand refunds, and when you can't manage to satisfy them, many file suit against you and your store.
Don't lose that Reggie Jackson card. You can trade it for a warm blanket when you're living in your car.
Yeah, kid, I've seen your Reggie Jackson rookie card. You've shown it to everybody in the school about half a dozen times, now. No, I don't know when lunch will be over--why don't you go out and pla... er, show some people outside your baseball card?
No, it's my lunchtime too. Really? I've told her a hundred times not to book my lunch... oh, what the hell. Just keep that it away from this pastrami; you could cut the value of that card pretty quickly with my lunch all over it.
So what's the plan? Really? You want to trade cards like this for a living? I don't care if your uncle says sports collectibles are hot right now, I think it may go like this:
You'll have to hit up your uncle and everyone else you're related to for a start-up loan. You'll get an incredibly small space up in a mall like that one by the airport. You'll spend weeks building your initial stock by buying everything that seems undervalued on Ebay and elsewhere online. You'll read the obituary pages faithfully, looking for estates of sports fans who might have the occasional autographed baseball or signed jersey.
Even though you advertise your grand opening in collectors' magazines, on their websites and in all the local papers, the public is lukewarm to your business. Collectibles are a luxury, and in tough times people don't bother with that framed uniform or historic home run ball. Plus, you've only got the budget to stock C list collectibles anyway.
Still, you eke out a living by working every moment the store is open, thus hiring as few staff as possible. It's a stressful existence, though; you're always barely ahead of your creditors and all it will take is one stroke of bad luck to destroy your dream.
You scramble to find quality collectibles and eventually agree to a deal with a sketchy "collectibles acquisition agent" who goes to major sporting events and athlete appearances and harasses stars to sign all manner of sports clothing and memorabilia. You know some such agents use sketchy tactics like lying about sick kids to get donations, but you try to ignore your pangs of conscience when new items are sent in. Eventually you figure out the acquisition agent is taking such a big cut you're not making enough from the deal to bother renewing it after the first year.
Then you get a bit lucky. That cousin of yours--what's her name, Tessa?--the one who wants to be a Budweiser girl, agrees to come and work for you on weekends. What? Oh, yeah, she's been in here to share that little dream before. My guess is she'll be available when you need a temp. employee just the same.
She attracts collectible geeks like Star Trek conventioneers are drawn to, well, any female that will talk to them. Your weekend business picks up, and eventually you feel confident enough to leave her in charge so you can run a booth at a collectible convention in Dallas.
You learn a lot that weekend. Simply put, you have plenty of time to study your more successful competitors since virtually no one comes to your boring booth, and you take notes. The ones who have the biggest crowds offer either hot girls or sports celebrities.
The following month you take Tessa with you to another convention, and she helps you make enough to cover your convention merchant fees. Still, you realize a celebrity would draw even more people, and fortuitously, an agent drops his business card off at your booth and offers to help make that happen.
He's a representative of an agency who offer a stable of more than 200 ex-athletes from nearly every major sport, and when you call him he faxes you a list of stars with their appearance fees listed beside each one.
One in particular catches your eye. He's a well-known former major league batting star, famous not only for his home run and RBI stats, but also because of the controversy that erupted when his use of steroids was exposed. Despite his slightly tarnished reputation, you know he'll bring in fans, eager to meet someone so well known. You're surprised that he seems underpriced, so you decide to call the agent and book him.
The deal is completed, pending the bank's approval of your extending your line of credit to help cover the appearance fee. The bank manager hears the name of the ball player and smiles, agreeing to help provided you'll get his son an autographed ball.
Everything seems fine, and you excitedly arrange advertising and promotions to let everyone know who's coming to your store the following weekend. You even get a plug on a local sportcast when one of their reporters drops by to ask about the upcoming visit, though you're disappointed when the reporter and cameraman decide that Tessa would be a better choice to appear on air.
Sure enough, the publicity works, and when the limo you hired shows up in front of the store to deliver your guest, there are close to four hundred people waiting for a peek. The star athlete stumbles as he disembarks, then curses loudly, pulls a can of beer out of his pocket, and takes a long swig.
"Let's party!" he yells, and with a sinking feeling you realize that maybe there was a reason for his discount fee.
The rest of the afternoon is about damage control. You apologize for his crude comments to female customers and try to focus his energies on signing items for fans who are growing rapidly disenchanted with the drunken lout.
At one point he disappears into the bathroom, and finally after 15 minutes you go looking for him, only to find him passed out. You call a cab and try to get him out of the store, but he's discovered Tessa and insists she needs to go for a ride with him.
She's probably worked at a few places by this time that have given her relevant experience in dealing with drunken admirers, and she slickly twists out of the cab after the semi-conscious celebrity is buckled in. You sigh with both relief and despair as you watch him disappear.
The results of the day are mixed; you sold more merchandise than usual, though not quite enough to cover the appearance fee, and a local bar owner, impressed by Tessa's acumen in dealing with the athlete, hires her as his manager, depriving your store of the one thing that kept some customers coming in.
A couple of sports writers pen scathing editorials about the horrible example set by your guest, and letters to the editor from outraged parents complement their efforts.
You manage to clear out enough merchandise by having a "blow out sale" to cover your obligations to the bank, but you're on thinner financial ice than ever.
The final blow will come when a number of your collectibles are exposed in a fraud investigation as counterfeits. Apparently your sketchy acquisition agent went beyond finding collectibles, he also liked to invent some of them. Dozens of angry customers return to demand refunds, and when you can't manage to satisfy them, many file suit against you and your store.
Don't lose that Reggie Jackson card. You can trade it for a warm blanket when you're living in your car.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
How H1N1 leads to frostbite
Well, in kind of a roundabout way.
I work in the new wing of our building, opened in 2002. The stupid heating/cooling system is of course, state of the art, and can't be adjusted by any of the mere mortals who work in our building. Apparently, to make any changes, someone must bring a special computer in to hook up to the system and feed data back to Vancouver where adjustments can be made.
Or something like that.
Doesn't matter anyway, since a flaw in the design makes correcting the problem impossible.
You see, our theatre and the band room share a common heating/cooling thermostat somehow. That means that on days like yesterday and today, we have a problem. We've had an H1N1 vaccination clinic in our gym the past couple of days.
That means no P.E. classes in there. That means that the grade 9 and 10 band kids are all in our band room at the same time. All 145 of them.
That makes the temperature rise pretty quickly. That makes the cooling system blow air from outside into the band room. Unfortunately that means that the sub-freezing air is also blowing into my theatre. Thing is, it's already not that warm in there.
We bundle up in our jackets and try to get out of the line of the air vents. I turn on 30,000 watts of stage lighting to try to bring up the room temp. one degree or so. Today I brought a little space heater from home and kept it running for the morning.
*sigh* Reminds me of my very first high school job in Prince Rupert. We had climate control there too, and the windows were bolted shut to prevent folks like me from disturbing the finely-tuned system that meant one fan blew car exhaust into my room any time anyone idled by the "no parking" sign.
I had to threaten to throw a chair through a window before the principal came down with a screwdriver to help me sabotage that system. I wonder if taping over our fans would cause some sort of system failure now?
(After yesterday's incident where a band student plugging in some amps caused a power failure that darkened the school and some of the surrounding neighborhood, I'm reluctant to find out.)
Hope you're all keeping warm where you are. Clear and cold here, and about -6 (21 degrees F) right now.
We're just waiting by the phone at them moment, looks like my father in law is getting near the end and we're hoping a bed in hospice is available tomorrow.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Stolen
Don't even know the original creator of this list; saw it on a hockey newsgroup I frequent:
Random Thoughts
1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
6. Was learning cursive really necessary?
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least KIND OF tired.
10. Bad decisions make good stories.
11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.
12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.
13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this -- ever.
15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damn it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice-mail. What did you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?
16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
18. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Mom what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?
19. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
20. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.
Thought you might enjoy it.
UPDATE: I think they may have come from here: http://www.ruminations.com/site/
Thursday, December 03, 2009
The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a
Publisher
Publisher, huh? Probably go something like this:
You'll graduate from a writing program and take an entry-level job at a reputable publishing house. Long hours for little reward will pave your slow climb to the middle. You end up in the reader pool; learning to quickly peruse a manuscript to determine whether it's worth a serious look. After a while, though, you realize it's like looking for a needle in a haystack; 99% of those you label "interesting" still get rejected.
You slip into a routine, and fear that you may become lost forever in this unsatisfying, predictable job, instead of getting the chance to publish blockbusters and make careers. Then, through a moment of inspiration, you get your break. You create a new revenue stream for the company while solving an expensive problem at the same time.
Even though your publishing house, like most, accepts submissions online, many others feel it's too easy to just ignore an email attachment, and instead choose to send a hard copy of their work. It may well be true that the real thing in hand gets a better look than tired eyes can offer yet another story on your computer screen.
This creates tons of waste paper--you don't return manuscripts due to handling costs, even if the author includes return postage. Rather than paying for disposal of the rejections, you work out a deal with Duraflame to convert the manuscripts to fire logs, and the company gets a small income while eliminating recycling fees.
Your supervisor promotes you to head of the reading team, and you get to pick and choose the scripts you read. You also now appear on the company's internet employee list, which means you have to get an unlisted phone number and take your personal security seriously. Those who work in areas people feel passionately about are always at risk from wackos, and publishing company employees are sandwiched between poodle groomers and child pageant judges in the top ten death threat recipient list.
Still, things are lining up to earn you that coveted promotion to management when suddenly, it all comes crashing down.
On national television, your company is named by the author of a wildly successful new series about teen leprechauns as one of the big publishers who rejected her work. Her first novel, Ginger McGillicutty and the Shamrock of Doom, was what everyone had been looking for--the successor to the Harry Potter and Twilight series, the next great magical teen story. The financial windfall for the company that published the series pushed them into first place in your industry, and led to an investigation at your publishing house to find out who passed up the golden goose.
Your name is found when the paperwork revealing the story's rejection is uncovered. You're fired with no more than the obligatory severance package, and know with your epic failure quickly becoming a water cooler legend, you stand little chance of being hired elsewhere.
You use your severance money to start up a vanity publishing house. You know a printer that works cheap--your company quit using them after their substandard glue led to customer complaints--and you know that there are enough deluded but solvent writers around to give you a shot at success.
You buy annoying ads on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and you also buy a stolen list of Nanowrimo novel-writing contest entrants for a direct-email campaign. Sure enough, your business succeeds and you're earning enough to live comfortably.
As you rebuild your self-esteem you start to think about creating a legitimate publishing arm for your company. You've just hired your start-up staff when the second great disaster takes place.
Yet another tough copyright law gets passed, and this one goes beyond everything previous in protection of all kinds of intellectual property. It also allows for stiff penalties for those who publish stolen ideas, even if such mistakes are made innocently. Suddenly, emails from people who've spotted plagiarism in a variety of your clients' works start showing up in your inbox with annoying frequency. Most ask for a payout to keep quiet about your company's complicity in these situations, but you're unable to find the hush money required.
Soon legal fees, fines and court awards have driven your company to bankruptcy. You declare personal bankruptcy yourself a year later, and end up in a ratty rooming house in the rough part of town, where a draft and poor diet ultimately contribute to your death by pneumonia.
Almost no one attends your funeral because, ironically, the newspaper doesn't publish the obituary sent in by your former assistant when the payment cheque bounces.
Publisher, huh? Probably go something like this:
You'll graduate from a writing program and take an entry-level job at a reputable publishing house. Long hours for little reward will pave your slow climb to the middle. You end up in the reader pool; learning to quickly peruse a manuscript to determine whether it's worth a serious look. After a while, though, you realize it's like looking for a needle in a haystack; 99% of those you label "interesting" still get rejected.
You slip into a routine, and fear that you may become lost forever in this unsatisfying, predictable job, instead of getting the chance to publish blockbusters and make careers. Then, through a moment of inspiration, you get your break. You create a new revenue stream for the company while solving an expensive problem at the same time.
Even though your publishing house, like most, accepts submissions online, many others feel it's too easy to just ignore an email attachment, and instead choose to send a hard copy of their work. It may well be true that the real thing in hand gets a better look than tired eyes can offer yet another story on your computer screen.
This creates tons of waste paper--you don't return manuscripts due to handling costs, even if the author includes return postage. Rather than paying for disposal of the rejections, you work out a deal with Duraflame to convert the manuscripts to fire logs, and the company gets a small income while eliminating recycling fees.
Your supervisor promotes you to head of the reading team, and you get to pick and choose the scripts you read. You also now appear on the company's internet employee list, which means you have to get an unlisted phone number and take your personal security seriously. Those who work in areas people feel passionately about are always at risk from wackos, and publishing company employees are sandwiched between poodle groomers and child pageant judges in the top ten death threat recipient list.
Still, things are lining up to earn you that coveted promotion to management when suddenly, it all comes crashing down.
On national television, your company is named by the author of a wildly successful new series about teen leprechauns as one of the big publishers who rejected her work. Her first novel, Ginger McGillicutty and the Shamrock of Doom, was what everyone had been looking for--the successor to the Harry Potter and Twilight series, the next great magical teen story. The financial windfall for the company that published the series pushed them into first place in your industry, and led to an investigation at your publishing house to find out who passed up the golden goose.
Your name is found when the paperwork revealing the story's rejection is uncovered. You're fired with no more than the obligatory severance package, and know with your epic failure quickly becoming a water cooler legend, you stand little chance of being hired elsewhere.
You use your severance money to start up a vanity publishing house. You know a printer that works cheap--your company quit using them after their substandard glue led to customer complaints--and you know that there are enough deluded but solvent writers around to give you a shot at success.
You buy annoying ads on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and you also buy a stolen list of Nanowrimo novel-writing contest entrants for a direct-email campaign. Sure enough, your business succeeds and you're earning enough to live comfortably.
As you rebuild your self-esteem you start to think about creating a legitimate publishing arm for your company. You've just hired your start-up staff when the second great disaster takes place.
Yet another tough copyright law gets passed, and this one goes beyond everything previous in protection of all kinds of intellectual property. It also allows for stiff penalties for those who publish stolen ideas, even if such mistakes are made innocently. Suddenly, emails from people who've spotted plagiarism in a variety of your clients' works start showing up in your inbox with annoying frequency. Most ask for a payout to keep quiet about your company's complicity in these situations, but you're unable to find the hush money required.
Soon legal fees, fines and court awards have driven your company to bankruptcy. You declare personal bankruptcy yourself a year later, and end up in a ratty rooming house in the rough part of town, where a draft and poor diet ultimately contribute to your death by pneumonia.
Almost no one attends your funeral because, ironically, the newspaper doesn't publish the obituary sent in by your former assistant when the payment cheque bounces.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Deck the Halls with Awkward Moments
1. On Friday evening my wife and I had a lovely dinner out and then decided to do a little Christmas shopping after. We ran into some folks we know; the wife works with my wife sometimes, and their daughter's in my program, and had a great visit outside a store for about 45 minutes.
Awkward moment: I ranted at one point to the husband about how much I hate the program we use for attendance and grades in this province (by government mandate) only to discover that he's been working on the software for over a year now. I wished he'd mentioned what he'd been doing for a living since leaving the navy before I made the remarks about the software designers having compromising photos of government ministers to blackmail them into forcing us all to use the program. *sigh*
2. 12th grade student sent in her "fave five" to local station that plays the songs I don't love (see posts recently) and was selected for this lunchtime's winner. She took the phone call here in the theatre, then I put the station on the theatre sound system when the segment came on. Remember that "Whatchya Say" song I ranted about before? She hates it to. The radio station ignored two of her requests, and passed off that song along with another she hates as two of her "fave five". Nice--the city hears her name, her school, and these songs she despises as her favorites.
Oh, and her big prize? 4 tickets (worth 4 bucks apiece) to a Christmas craft sale. I doubt anyone who actually listens to that station would likely go to any craft sales at any time of the year.
She's considering her legal options...
Awkward moment: I ranted at one point to the husband about how much I hate the program we use for attendance and grades in this province (by government mandate) only to discover that he's been working on the software for over a year now. I wished he'd mentioned what he'd been doing for a living since leaving the navy before I made the remarks about the software designers having compromising photos of government ministers to blackmail them into forcing us all to use the program. *sigh*
2. 12th grade student sent in her "fave five" to local station that plays the songs I don't love (see posts recently) and was selected for this lunchtime's winner. She took the phone call here in the theatre, then I put the station on the theatre sound system when the segment came on. Remember that "Whatchya Say" song I ranted about before? She hates it to. The radio station ignored two of her requests, and passed off that song along with another she hates as two of her "fave five". Nice--the city hears her name, her school, and these songs she despises as her favorites.
Oh, and her big prize? 4 tickets (worth 4 bucks apiece) to a Christmas craft sale. I doubt anyone who actually listens to that station would likely go to any craft sales at any time of the year.
She's considering her legal options...
Friday, November 27, 2009
internet time capsules
I've always been a bit fascinated by those old things you find that take you back to another time--old newspapers or magazines that might be stashed in an attic, for instance. It's probably why I have a few thousand old radio shows from the 30s to 50s I like to listen to when I'm out working the yard or around the house. It's why the books from 100 years ago always catch my eye if I'm wandering the university library.
Maybe you've seen those time capsules that get buried on special occasions to be recoved 50, 100 or more years in the future. There are probably many buildings that still have items stashed in the cornerstone that may be discovered when demolition happens.
It's also that way with things more personal. I've never kept a diary regularly, but there are old letters and other bits of writing stashed away here and there that I might run across every few years that can take me back a couple of decades to a time when priorities and ideas were quite different.
Still, there isn't much of that stuff. There are, though, electronic captures of moments in the past, and each of us is leaving a trail of our past in the technology that surrounds us.
I got my first cassette recorder in the 6th grade. I loved it, and used it so much I needed a new one a year later.
My friends and I used to do all sorts of performing on this device, mostly silly routines where we'd imitate our teachers or something. I used to have a lot of those around but I don't think I have any left now. Then there were the tapes an old girlfriend and I used to send back and forth to each other when we lived in different towns--I know I chose to erase those.
Still, these things are private, and we can make them vanish forever if we want.
With the web it's a bit different. We can forget exactly where we've left electronic footprints, and others can post photos or videos of us that we have no control over. I know, for instance, that somewhere one of my nanowrimo novel blogs still exists, but I have no idea how to find it. I suppose if I could find that unfinished transcript file on my computer I could then do a search, but why bother?
Many of us have joined or signed up for all sorts of networking, writing or photo sharing accounts on all sorts of sites. Some get forgotten. Maybe it's the myspace page after facebook wins out, or the livejournal abandoned in favour of blogger, but some do get abandoned.
Somewhere there are a few other blogs done for fun years ago that never got wiped out. A deviantart page with some writing and photos, a bunch of photobucket accounts, some flickr IDs, a youtube or two, vimeo, lastfm and more. I go to a page and see photos of people I don't talk to anymore, or read comments and conversations between myself and those who wouldn't talk to me now if I sat next to them on a four-hour air flight.
It's not ever really gone, though. Various places on the web cache pages with the result that if you know the right places to look, you cam probably still find that deleted account with your passionate accounting of your pokemon collection, or the photos from the good times in a relationship that ended badly.
Maybe that's a good thing, though. When we're tempted to paint another with a broad and unforgiving brush, we can recall when they weren't the one-dimensional dysfunction slotted into that drawer in our memory's filing cabinet, but someone we also admired, teased, cared about and even loved. We see that our simplification of them isn't likely fair or accurate.
That's only if we can bear to look. Sometimes I still do.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Happy U.S. Thanksgiving!
Well, I'm a few days early, but in case I don't post again before Thursday, thought I should add that.
The murder mystery went really well--they liked it even more this year, and I think it was because we put quite a bit more humour in it. The kids like playing over the top characters and many of them took full advantage. Plus we had a great time scarfing down pizza across the road afterwards. I was very proud of the wonderful job they all did.
Then the next night it was the "revue" show by mostly band kids as a band fundraiser. It also ran Saturday, but my wife, daughter and I went on Friday. Amazingly talented kids, many doing their own original compositions, and quality of the calibre that I'd buy their albums when/if the release any.
There were a couple of issues, but I'd best save them for the "other" blog if I bother.
Dance show is this Thursday night--this afternoon was spent inundated by dancers working through their dress rehearsal in the theatre. I've got some amazing tech kids this year, my number one guy was in the murder mystery thursday, came back to the school around 7:30 with me and stayed there to help with the Revue rehearsal, then was back the next two nights to work that show, then in on Sunday to help strike it all, then in all afternoon today to help with the tech for the dance rehearsal.
He's proven himself as the rightful "keeper of the keys" this year.
Nanowrimo: *sigh* I had high hopes, and there's enough story in my brain to fill the 50,000 words, I am just too busy to spend the time I need writing it. I'm at 20,000 now with only a week left to go; it ain't gonna happen.
Maybe next year.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
okay--you asked for it--songs that annoy me in my car #1
Well, you didn't ask for it, but Rachel did.
First on the list there's "You Belong to Me" by Taylor Swift. It offers the following petty annoyances:
Rhyming "If you could see that I'm the one who understands you" with "Been here all along, so why can't you..." She rhymes "you" with "you". Plus she rhymes "that" with "that" and "do" with "do". Brilliant. She also rhymes "upset" with "said", "night" with "like", "find" with "time"--oh, and about "time" which is repeated at the end of a couple of verses--she says "tsime". Don't believe me? Listen next time it comes on the radio, before you switch the station, and I bet you'll hear it.
And then there's Sean Kingston--I want to drive into a telephone pole every time I hear "Shawty fire burning on the dance floor". I can't even bother with the rest of the lyrics to that stupid song.
Thing is, the station my daughter inflicts on me plays about a dozen songs over and over, throwing in something else occasionally just to fulfill whatever Canadian content rules they have to obey as part of their broadcast license. (or did that get outlawed with the free trade pact?)
I think we've heard "I've gotta feeling" at least half of the morning commutes in the last month on that station, and considering it takes less than 25 minutes to drive in, that's one predictable radio station. (and actually, as much as I dislike Fergie, I have to admit I don't mind that song)
It may be I'm going to have to go with option 2--I get the radio and she gets her Ipod--but then it's tough to have actual conversations so I guess for now I'm stuck with autotune song after autotune song. (You know, that weird distorty voice thing that virtually every song on certain stupid stations uses--it also disguises a lack of actual singing talent.)
Oh, and one more annoyance: "Oooh Watchya Say"--I liked the Imogen Heap song with the amazing harmonies and then this comes out. Yeah, Jason Derulo, you've got a sampling and autotune setup in your basement and you are an artist. You even named your "album" "Watcha Say" as well--wow, you're a musical genius, capitalizing on that one number you sampled.
I'm so tired of the samplers who pretend they've created something original--particularly the ones who fake up their voices with autotune. Seriously, all it proves is that you've got a knack at choosing a good song to rip off and you have access to some audio technology.
Now back to nanowrimo.
First on the list there's "You Belong to Me" by Taylor Swift. It offers the following petty annoyances:
Rhyming "If you could see that I'm the one who understands you" with "Been here all along, so why can't you..." She rhymes "you" with "you". Plus she rhymes "that" with "that" and "do" with "do". Brilliant. She also rhymes "upset" with "said", "night" with "like", "find" with "time"--oh, and about "time" which is repeated at the end of a couple of verses--she says "tsime". Don't believe me? Listen next time it comes on the radio, before you switch the station, and I bet you'll hear it.
And then there's Sean Kingston--I want to drive into a telephone pole every time I hear "Shawty fire burning on the dance floor". I can't even bother with the rest of the lyrics to that stupid song.
Thing is, the station my daughter inflicts on me plays about a dozen songs over and over, throwing in something else occasionally just to fulfill whatever Canadian content rules they have to obey as part of their broadcast license. (or did that get outlawed with the free trade pact?)
I think we've heard "I've gotta feeling" at least half of the morning commutes in the last month on that station, and considering it takes less than 25 minutes to drive in, that's one predictable radio station. (and actually, as much as I dislike Fergie, I have to admit I don't mind that song)
It may be I'm going to have to go with option 2--I get the radio and she gets her Ipod--but then it's tough to have actual conversations so I guess for now I'm stuck with autotune song after autotune song. (You know, that weird distorty voice thing that virtually every song on certain stupid stations uses--it also disguises a lack of actual singing talent.)
Oh, and one more annoyance: "Oooh Watchya Say"--I liked the Imogen Heap song with the amazing harmonies and then this comes out. Yeah, Jason Derulo, you've got a sampling and autotune setup in your basement and you are an artist. You even named your "album" "Watcha Say" as well--wow, you're a musical genius, capitalizing on that one number you sampled.
I'm so tired of the samplers who pretend they've created something original--particularly the ones who fake up their voices with autotune. Seriously, all it proves is that you've got a knack at choosing a good song to rip off and you have access to some audio technology.
Now back to nanowrimo.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Nano!
I decided to take yet another shot at Nanowrimo--I've done it once, got the 50,000 words completed by the deadline.
Report card marking and a bunch of other stuff put me way behind and as of this time yesterday I was at about 6400, but now, 24 hours later, I'm over 10,400, so maybe I won't quit yet.
That's why I haven't been blogging much, though. Maybe I'll post something this weekend, though. I feel a good rant about some of the music I'm hearing all the time now my daughter chooses the radio stations going to and from school together every day.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Happy Halloween!
Hey, it's a big deal for me to be able to say that. I used to hate halloween. Hate.
I used to blame my childhood memory of having my candies jacked (oops--hanging with adolescents clearly has vocabulary implications) by some older kid when I was 9 and then having that kid pull a knife on me when I chased him.
Really, though, that wasn't it. It was more the craziness that we moved into in our current neighborhood 15 years ago. For the first few years it was always "150+ kids at our door, pipe bomb blew up the kiosk where we all pick up our mail, stupid kids next door keeping mine awake for a couple weeks with screechers and firecrackers every night..."
Now it's way more relaxed. My better half actually was arguing that we should just take each kid to their planned celebratory location, turn off the outside lights, and bugger off somewhere ourselves. That used to always be me.
Now I'm the one who wants to be sure someone's here handing out candy--at least until the 17 year olds in garbage bags with holes for their arms start showing up at 9:00 p.m.
In sort of related things, I had a visit around lunchtime from a grad of '06--there were supposed to be two of them and we were going to reprise/update my favorite halloween photo from about five years ago when they made me up as a zombie.
The one who did come still wanted to do it, and after she finished making me rather undead, we did a few photos.
While looking for a video of a play she was in, I ran across the montage video of embarassing clips from the past I made for her grad class. We debated the wisdom of my posting it on facebook; there's one friend whose gender feelings and changes might make that old video particularly unwelcome, but maybe an edited version?
Watching it brought back some memories. Made me think of a quote someone passed along--I think it was from Camus? "Nothing thwarts happiness like the memory of happiness". If you knew the back story that would make sense.
Then I had to go see my daughter and the rest of the junior band kids play for the olympic torch gathering. You see, the torch was lit in Greece, then flown here to be relayed throughout this area, across the province and then around the country. Doesn't really make sense--shouldn't they have started on the east coast and worked their way across to Vancouver? I guess the hype begins and ends out here.
The weather was nicer than expected, and I walked to the park a few blocks from the school. Thing is, I was still decked out as a zombie--just added my glasses. I got a few funny looks, but there were others in olympics-related costumes, plus they'd been expecting protesters anyway, so maybe it wasn't all that strange, considering it was the day before halloween.
I caught one parent photographing me from a distance; she's someone I know though. It was funny as various band kids spotted me and then figured out who I was. A couple of grads from last year came by as well--after one's mom took our photo I asked her to take one on my camera as well:
On our way back, my daughter and I encountered the torch relay. Man--what a lot of cops from various police forces were on duty riding by on motorbikes and in various vehicles--I'm sure I saw over a hundred. All for a silly publicity gimmick.
Anyway, this rambling is good practice for Nanowrimo. I'm still scrambling for a decent novel idea, but I'm thinking of taking another shot this year. The person who got me started on this a few years ago told me she's trying again this year, and if she can do it while fulfilling her college work obligations, surely I might pull it off. (I'm one for three on this, but the last time I really didn't give it an honest try.)
If you've got any last minute suggestions for my novel direction, let me know. If you're going to take a crack at it yourself, let me know that as well.
I used to blame my childhood memory of having my candies jacked (oops--hanging with adolescents clearly has vocabulary implications) by some older kid when I was 9 and then having that kid pull a knife on me when I chased him.
Really, though, that wasn't it. It was more the craziness that we moved into in our current neighborhood 15 years ago. For the first few years it was always "150+ kids at our door, pipe bomb blew up the kiosk where we all pick up our mail, stupid kids next door keeping mine awake for a couple weeks with screechers and firecrackers every night..."
Now it's way more relaxed. My better half actually was arguing that we should just take each kid to their planned celebratory location, turn off the outside lights, and bugger off somewhere ourselves. That used to always be me.
Now I'm the one who wants to be sure someone's here handing out candy--at least until the 17 year olds in garbage bags with holes for their arms start showing up at 9:00 p.m.
In sort of related things, I had a visit around lunchtime from a grad of '06--there were supposed to be two of them and we were going to reprise/update my favorite halloween photo from about five years ago when they made me up as a zombie.
The one who did come still wanted to do it, and after she finished making me rather undead, we did a few photos.
While looking for a video of a play she was in, I ran across the montage video of embarassing clips from the past I made for her grad class. We debated the wisdom of my posting it on facebook; there's one friend whose gender feelings and changes might make that old video particularly unwelcome, but maybe an edited version?
Watching it brought back some memories. Made me think of a quote someone passed along--I think it was from Camus? "Nothing thwarts happiness like the memory of happiness". If you knew the back story that would make sense.
Then I had to go see my daughter and the rest of the junior band kids play for the olympic torch gathering. You see, the torch was lit in Greece, then flown here to be relayed throughout this area, across the province and then around the country. Doesn't really make sense--shouldn't they have started on the east coast and worked their way across to Vancouver? I guess the hype begins and ends out here.
The weather was nicer than expected, and I walked to the park a few blocks from the school. Thing is, I was still decked out as a zombie--just added my glasses. I got a few funny looks, but there were others in olympics-related costumes, plus they'd been expecting protesters anyway, so maybe it wasn't all that strange, considering it was the day before halloween.
I caught one parent photographing me from a distance; she's someone I know though. It was funny as various band kids spotted me and then figured out who I was. A couple of grads from last year came by as well--after one's mom took our photo I asked her to take one on my camera as well:
On our way back, my daughter and I encountered the torch relay. Man--what a lot of cops from various police forces were on duty riding by on motorbikes and in various vehicles--I'm sure I saw over a hundred. All for a silly publicity gimmick.
Anyway, this rambling is good practice for Nanowrimo. I'm still scrambling for a decent novel idea, but I'm thinking of taking another shot this year. The person who got me started on this a few years ago told me she's trying again this year, and if she can do it while fulfilling her college work obligations, surely I might pull it off. (I'm one for three on this, but the last time I really didn't give it an honest try.)
If you've got any last minute suggestions for my novel direction, let me know. If you're going to take a crack at it yourself, let me know that as well.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Timing seems appropriate
What with it being halloween and all. Remember the feet?
http://herrdirektor.blogspot.com/2008/05/another-foot.html
http://herrdirektor.blogspot.com/2008/06/this-is-getting-ridiculous.html
http://herrdirektor.blogspot.com/2008/06/another-day-another-one-found.html
Well, apparently it's not a sick halloween prank--they've found another one.
First another ship of illegal migrants shows is taken into custody a couple of weeks ago, and now this--it's like we're reliving the news stories from a couple of years back.
http://herrdirektor.blogspot.com/2008/05/another-foot.html
http://herrdirektor.blogspot.com/2008/06/this-is-getting-ridiculous.html
http://herrdirektor.blogspot.com/2008/06/another-day-another-one-found.html
Well, apparently it's not a sick halloween prank--they've found another one.
First another ship of illegal migrants shows is taken into custody a couple of weeks ago, and now this--it's like we're reliving the news stories from a couple of years back.
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