Jake loves sweeping the floor.

I need to buy Jake a small broom so he can help me sweep. Otherwise, he scoots over and grabs the broom from my hand and starts sweeping randomly.

While he's doing this, he's sitting in the dust pile on the floor, getting his bum covered in dirt and dust, and then dragging it around with him as he sweeps.

He seems to understand that I'm gathering dirt, but doesn't understand the overall purpose of sweeping - to clean the floor.

So I gave up and just let him help me sweep for 15 minutes. I was waiting for him to get bored. He didn't get bored. He loved it. He was concentrating hard. Sometimes the broom handle would hit his head (because it's so long and he's not coordinated).

Finally I sent him upstairs for a bath.

Do you truly know something if you know it for the wrong reasons?

This is called epistemology - philosophical discussions about the nature of knowledge. A friend and I were talking about this. He posed the above question to me and I told him it was a tough question but that my gut told me no.

If you know something for the wrong reason, you don't truly know that thing. I used the crude example of high school math text books with the answers in the back. If you turned to the back and wrote down the answers, you'd ace the assignment. But you'd obviously have no idea how to do math - so you truly wouldn't understand.

He agreed and used a better example. Imagine you're watching Wimbledon - but it was in actuality a re-run of last year's Wimbledon going on at the same time as this years. So, in fact, you thought you were watching this year's Wimbledon. And indeed it has all the same tennis stars and matches and lo and behold the same winner - Andre Agassiz.

So do you truly know the winner of Wimbledon? You'd say "Andre Agassiz" and you'd be correct. (Because he won last year as well.) But it seems obvious that you don't truly know the winner of this year's Wimbledon.

Only by concidence, your knowledge happened to be correct. You watched last year's Wimbledon, thinking it was this years, and that means your knowledge was incomplete, unbenowst to you.

Likewise, you also wouldn't truly know who won last year's Wimbledon - even though you just watched it on TV. That's because you thought you were watching this year's Wimbledon. So we have the same problem, but in reverse.

Why do women secretly listen to your phone conversations?

I've noticed throughout my working career that women listen-in on private phone calls. I'll be talking on the phone to my wife, and the women nearby will appear to be working away, but they're listening to everything I say.

I know this because they will often mention something later in the day that they could have only heard through my phone call.

In my last job, one woman nearby would directly ask me, "Who were you talking to?" after listening in on my phone calls. She obviously didn't care.

Cindy confirms this is the case. She says women "can't help" listening in on phone calls because it's evolution. She says women don't focus their attention like men do. Women need to be aware of all sounds going on around them so they can "hear the baby cry".

Men, on the other hand, tune out other sounds and focus on the prey. The hunt. That's why many men don't listen to women, and women get so mad.

I can easily ignore phone conversations around me. Cindy cannot.

This is the biggest and largest mass optical illusion.

When the moon is lower in the sky it appears bigger than when it's higher in the sky. This isn't the case. The moon in the sky is always the same size.

This is called the "moon illusion" and is well-documented. You can prove it by using a ruler to measure the moon as you extend your arm straight out. It will always measure the same size.

(Actually, technically the moon on the horizon looks about 1% smaller than an overhead moon due to atmospheric effects.)

The other day I was driving home and the moon looked HUGE in the sky. It's hard to believe that's just an optical illusion.

Another cool thing about the moon: it's the only object that every seeing human being has seen. Whether you're in China or America. Whether you lived now or thousands of years ago - everyone who wasn't blind has seen the moon - and the exact same side of the moon, the same face.

No other object is that popular, except maybe for the sun, but the surface of the sun is a changing mass of gas and fire. So it's not really the same "thing" that I saw yesterday, although it is the same overall object.

The world is going to end in 2012.

Apparently they're saying the world is going to end in 2012. The 5,000 year Mayan calender apparently starts a new cycle in 2012.

I look forward to the apocalypse. It would be kind of fun living through the destruction of mankind and the planet earth, as long as there wasn't much pain involved.

I picked up 2012 : the return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck. His idea is that the world won't end, but that there will be a transformation of consciousness that will lead to a new inventions, discoveries and paradigm shifts.

I got all this from the first 5 pages or so. The book is huge and I won't be reading it. It seems a little self-indulgent and long winded to me. Hundreds and hundreds of pages to describe what I just said in a couple sentences...

I'm not sure what evidence he's presenting, but of course it would be all soft, untestable, sociological arguments or speculations. There's no way any one could predict what will happen in 2012, if anything.

And that's the problem with books like these. They're pointless because nothing will happen in 2012. It will be a year just like any other.

I remember when boxing day used to be a big deal.

I think Boxing Day was a big deal when I was a kid. I vaguely remember that it was illegal for stores to open on boxing day, but many did anyway and faced government fines for breaking the law.

How silly.

I also remember huge crowds and line ups - similar to "Black Friday" in the States where Walmart shoppers trample each other trying to buy stereos.

Except this was Canada so it was much more polite. No trampling. Even in high school I remember walking around the malls on boxing day, shoulder to shoulder with all the people trying to save 30% on a $20 compact disc.

First, are the prices that good on Boxing Day? I don't know. I imagine they're pretty good, but not spectacular. Stores still need to make money. They don't give stuff away. So my guess is that in most cases you would be paying more than wholesale.

Second, is it worth the hassle? Think of the crowds and lineups and general inconvenience. Is it worth it to put up with this to save a few dollars? Maybe. Not for me though. Not for a lot of people. In fact, I'd pay 30% more if I could guaranteed that the malls would be empty, I'd have great service and the parking lot would be wide open.

Third, I bet half the stuff they advertise is gone. You'd show up the store and they'd do a classic bait and switch. Unless you were one of the idiots who lined up outside at 3am - then you may have been lucky enough to buy that object that will change your life forever and make you happy.

Nowadays boxing day isn't a big deal anymore. Places like Costco have low, warehouse prices all the time. Regular stores have boxing week sales. No rush. You can buy most things online for pretty cheap, and if you really want to cheap out you can go to Craigslist.

Isn't a boxing day blow out sale such a strange thing? I mean, here we are, complaining for the last month about the commercialization of Christmas and how poor we are and how it's such a hassle to buy gifts, then THE DAY AFTER Christmas we rush out to the malls to trample on people so we can buy more shit.

Now I'm angry.

Christmas is awesome when you're a kid.

When you're an adult Christmas is a bit of a pain. There's a lot to do. Tons of obligations.

When you're a kid Christmas is the greatest thing in the world.

I remember being so excited that I couldn't sleep on Christmas eve. It was all about the toys. I wanted as much as possible. A huge, giant pile of toys.

This is actually a pretty good metaphor for our culture today. When we're sad we think it's because we're "empty". Therefore the quick and easy solution is to buy as many things as possible.

Things will fill us up and make us more happy. By the way, this isn't just my opinion. I got the idea from a great psychology paper I read called Why the Self Is Empty: toward a Historically Situated Psychology by Philip Cushman (1990) "American Psychologist".

He writes, "...the current self is constructed as empty, and as a result the state controls its population not by restricting the impulses of its citizens, as in Victorian times, but by creating and manipulating their wish to be soothed, organized, and made cohesive by momentarily filling them up."

He says that America, after World War II, became a culture obsessed with self-improvement. "As the individual's growth, enjoyment, and fulfillment became the single most valued aspect of life."

Merry Christmas!

The worst things about kids' toys.

You only notice or think about kids toys when you're a parent. A few things I've learned about kids' toys:

- It's really hard to predict a good toy. You can never tell from the package.
- A huge percentage of kids toys are poorly designed or made.
- Some of them do or say weird things. I swear one of Jake's toys yells out "BITCH!!"

Here's a list of the worst things about kids' toys, in no particular order.

1.) Batteries. Some toys use the expensive AAA batteries - and just eat them up like candy. Also, when the batteries die, the toy goes a little crazy and starts shouting out gibberish. Usually at 1am.

2) Some toys have buttons or switches that are too hard to push for kids. Also, some toys don't react fast enough when you push the button.

3) Some toys have annoying little reminders that sound after a few minutes of being idle. "Play with me!!!" Which sucks, because we've just distracted Jake enough to play with something less annoying and suddenly you hear, "Play with me!" and Jake scurries back to play with the annoying toy.

4) Some toys encourage bad behaviour. For example, they make a sound when you throw them.

5) Some toys miss opportunities to educate. When you press an animal button, it makes the wrong sound. Or the songs don't quite sound right. Or one toy promotes its name brand. "Thank you for playing with Leap Frog!!" Marketing.

Some food items that have improved remarkably.

Remember how gross frozen pizza used to be? I remember cooking it in university. It was a round, rubbery disk of fake cheese and stale tomato sauce. It tasted nothing like a pizza.

Instant popcorn used to be pretty gross. I'm thinking of that popcorn you held over the stove element. It would burn and half the kernels wouldn't pop. Then microwave popcorn came along and it's just awesome.

Airplane food used to be nasty. Then the airplanes started hiring chefs to prepare menus and the food became good. Impressive, actually.

TV dinners used to be gross. Now there are a whole bunch of Lean Cuisine frozen meals - from lasagna to stir fry. Very tasty.

When I was a kid, Doritos chips used to be pretty gross. Then they came out with Cool Ranch and a whole bunch of exotic flavours. Now Doritos are awesome.

Diet cola used to be awful. You could barely bring diet Coke and Pepsi to your lips. The aspartame taste was horrendous. Now a days, diet soda tastes almost the same as regular soda. They've really improved it.

Jesus wasn't born on Christmas.

It's pretty common knowlege that Jesus wasn't born on December 25th. The Bible never says what time of year he was born, and old Christian writings don't mention celebrations around his birth.

The two theories are:

1) December 25th was chosen by church leaders because that's when traditional pagan feasts and celebrations took place, and they adapted many pagan customs.

2) December 25th was chosen by church leaders because of links between passover (his death) and his conception.

Either way, it doesn't matter much in our society. Santa is much more popular than Jesus. Parents actively tell their kids that Santa rides around on a sleigh and gives them presents. And that's what kids care about.

The master manipulator.

I'm grudgingly impressed with the way Jake can manipulate people (including us). He's a master at avoiding at eating and he's developed some sneaky tricks to use on us and the daycare workers.

Here's a few of the things he does:

Fake tired.
He pretends he's exhausted and tired. He signs sleep and lies his head down on the tray. He slouches forward as well and pretends he's sleepy. This really tricked us at first. We'd get him down and then he's immediately start playing with tons of energy. Now we say, "Sit up straight" and pull his head and body to a sitting position.

Turning his head to Look Somewhere
He'll pretend to be interested in the kitchen behind him and he'll turn his head to watch something, just as we prepare to feed him. So we've turned his chair around so he's facing the kitchen. Now when he spins around, there's only a wall.

Holding Food in His Mouth
He will hold food in his mouth and stop chewing.

Fake Sips
By far his most clever trick. When we first started behavioural therapy he'd drink properly and gulp his milk. He'd drink 100 ml a meal. Now he's back to 5 ml to 50 ml if we're lucky. He figured out that he can simply hold the cup in his mouth, and it looks like he's drinking the milk. He does a fake little swallow, but just swallows his saliva.

The trick is telling tell his daycare worker to be forceful. They don't like forcing kids to eat. We say, "If it was up to him, he'd starve." The trick is also to keep up with his avoidance. As he figures out our strategies, he's able to counter them.

My Christmas music awards.

I think most Christmas music is cheesy. Occasionally you hear a good song. Here's my list of Christmas music awards:

Best Christmas Song: We Three Kings.
This song has 2 great melodies. I like the beginning "we three kings" melody and the chorus "oh star of wonder" melody.

Most Depressing Verse: We Three Kings.
Another award for this great tune. Most depressing verse. Here are the words: "Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume/Breathes of life of gathering gloom/Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying/Sealed in the stone-cold tomb". Awesome.

Most melodramatic Christmas Song: Happy Christmas by John Lennon
"So this is Christmas, what have you done?". It's usually its accompanied by a television commercial of starving African children.

Coolest Christmas Song: Drummer Boy.
It's cool because of the drums. Great rhythm.

Best Rock Christmas Song: Jingle bell Rock
The original Jingle bell Rock. Can't remember who sang it. I love the guitar beginning. The rest of the song is average. But that little riff at the beginning is sweet.

Best Modern Rock Christmas Song: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Barenaked Ladies
They did well covering this song. It's pretty fast-paced and catchy.

We had our "team meeting" about Jake.

On Thursday I had a "team meeting" with all of Jake's kind-hearted but pretty useless community support people. His physiotherapist, speech therapist, something else, daycare worker and daycare manager showed up (the daycare people aren't useless).

The idea is that we "set goals" for Jake's progress so that we can "all be on the same page".

Every few months we get a phone call from one of the "team members" to have a "goal meeting". Usually it doesn't happen because they only work 10 hours a week and we can never settle on a date or time. But I guess their year-end evaluations are due and they need to fill out some paperwork on Jake so they all agreed on a time and place.

I told the daycare people that they didn't have to come because it was pretty useless. I didn't go to the last one, but Cindy told me they all basically sat around asking her the same questions over and over again and telling her that Jake "eats normally". A pretty bizarre thing to say considering he has a g-tube because he doesn't eat or drink on his own, and is underweight.

The daycare people said they wanted to go and asked me if the behaviourist was coming. I said, "Hell no". We pay her $150 an hour to teach us how to make Jake eat, not to sit around and talk about goals, ask dumb questions and make inane statements.

So we all went. I brought Jake along so I could use him as an excuse to duck out early when I started getting annoyed. (I gotta be polite because they control some of our funding.)

I showed up, sat there politely for an hour, then left. It was what I expected - pretty pointless. Talk means nothing. I can sit around and talk for hours about everything I want Jake to do, but that doesn't get anything done.

The most expensive movie of all time is going to suck.

Today, the most expensive movie of all time is hitting theatres. James Cameron's "Avatar".

The movie is reputed to have cost $500 million to make. That's half a billion dollars. That amount of money can buy two whole African countries.

And what will we get for this money? We will get 2 hours of amazing, unbelievable, impressive visual CGI effects. These effects will be awesome for about 5 minutes. Then the boredom will set in.

That's sort of the way it is with fireworks. You're interested for a few minutes, then the mindless explosions get boring.

A good movie needs a good story, with good characters and strong writing. Look at Star Wars. The original Star Wars had lame special effects but an amazing story. The new Star Wars had great effects, but a lame story.

Which were better? Not one person will tell you the new Star Wars movies are superior. Not one.

I'm skeptical that a half billion dollar movie will be any good. Why? Because they spent all the money on special effects. They didn't put any resources into characters or scripts.

Why did they spend half a billion on special effects? Because the script was so bad they needed dazzling effects to make the movie work.

Either way, the movie is going to suck.

Post script:

(By the way, I'm not saying Avatar won't make profit. I think that's almost a forgone conclusion because we'll be hit over the head with the hype and people will go see it. I'm saying the movie won't be very good. It can't be.)

(Let's look at a couple examples. 1) Pirates of the Caribbean. Made a ton of money - but the movies were mediocre at best. The last 2 were downright boring. 2) Spiderman - made a ton of money. But the movies got worse and worse.

Finally, let's look at a counter-example. Lord of the Rings. Great special effects and great movies. So it is possible that Avatar could pull it off, just not very likely.)

I miss hearing about Britney Spears.

I was listening to the radio the other day and thinking, "I really miss hearing about Britney Spears."

I remember fondly the days when I'd hear various news stories about her. I'd see her picture on magazines and newspapers. I'd even hear a few of her songs on the radio.

I think she had gotten married, then divorced, then had kids and parented them poorly, then cut her hair and messed up a few dance shows and perhaps took drugs. Her sister got pregnant, and Britney was taken away in an ambulance at one point, I think.

Oh and she got married in Vegas for one night, and she french kissed Madonna at an award show. Here is a list of Brittany's studio albums:

Baby One More Time (1999)
Oops!... I Did It Again (2000)
Britney (2001)
In the Zone (2003)
Blackout (2007)
Circus (2008)

Apparently she's coming out with another one in 2010 - which I suppose will make me happy because we'll start hearing about her again. Right now it's all Lady GaGa. Meh.

PS: I just saw her on a magazine cover. Apparently she's getting married for the third time in 2010. So I suppose we will be hearing more about her shortly.

Subway is disappointing.

You know what? Subway is disappointing. I've been disappointed the last few times I've gone there. It's not a horrible restaurant. It's just not very good.

Which is too bad because they have so much potential. It's clean, relatively healthy. The service is good and the prices are reasonable. It's just that the sandwiches fall short. I think the vegetables are a little wilted. Their bread all tastes the same.

And the six inch size is just a little too small. While the 12 inch size is too big.

I like Quizno's better. Better presentation (a little basket), you get a hot pepper, they invented toasting the bun and they have better sizes (8 inch). On the downside: expensive.

But back to Subway: we had it last night and the bread was a little stale. The sandwiches are also a little bland. Poor Jared had to eat there for years. I would have puked every day, and that's how I would have lost my weight.

The endless email.

I guess this would be considered a moderately interesting work story. Yesterday, a guy sent me an email I didn't understand. He said:

We still need our tour out form and roster filled out before I can send to the UK for their approval................[link]

I wrote him back:

Hi Bob, I'm confused by this email. Can you explain what you need me to do? Thanks,
Jim

He wrote back the exact same thing:

We still need our tour out form and roster filled out before I can send to the UK for their approval................[link]

I was greatly amused. I've never seen this before so I thought for a moment and wrote back:

Hi Bob, I'm confused by this email. Can you explain what you need me to do? Thanks,Jim

I was half hoping he'd write back the same email, but instead he wrote:

I don’t believe I can be any clearer – here are the procedures to follow for international tours....................................read the linked page, and forward to the school.

Okay, maybe that's not such a great story. But it helped break up the day. Plus when I told my wife she said I was "cheeky". And I needed a blog entry for today.

I want to steal from stores as revenge for poor customer service.

Sometimes I think a little theifing is in order. Especially when I get bad customer service.

It's easy to put something on your cart or your tray and then just don't take it out at the cashier. It's the obvious stealing technique. If anyone calls you on it, you simply "forgot" and you act embarrassed.

A few times, I've given Jake toys to hold and then pushed him through the line without bothering to pay for the item. So he's stolen some things for me. Once it was a bag of licorice.

Another time at Canadian Tire I was waiting around for someone for 10 minutes. The sales guy left and never came back. I wanted to borrow a measuring tape to see if an item fit in my trunk.

I got fed up and took one from the shelf and walked out the store to my car and measured. I can't remember if I returned it. I may have put it down on the ground in the parking lot.

We should steal from stores who give us bad customer service! Why not? It will teach them a lesson. They obviously don't care...

One major problem with cell phones...

For the most part, cell phones are great. Yes, other people can be annoying - but the convenience of cell phones far outweighs the minority of people who abuse them.

I was in university (mid 90s) when cell phones first started being popular. I don't really remember, but I imagine they were big in size.

I do remember my roommate making fun of people who walked around talking on the cell phone. He openly pointed at them and said out loud, "Cell phone geek!"

Now everyone has one.

But there is one major problem. A cell phone makes it easier for the wife to call you up and yell at you. In the old days your spouse had to wait until you were home. Now, with the advent of cell phones, castigation is instant.

People in our town are beginning to recognize us.

People in our town are beginning to know us - or more specifically Jake. They will come up to us and talk and we don't know who they are.

Sometimes they get excited when they see Jake walking or doing some new skill. "Oh look at that!" they will shout. This happened at a toy store recently. The woman apparently knew who Jake was, and he had been taking a couple steps.

If we go to a restaurant (which is rare), the server will talk to us like she knows us. "I remember when you came in here last year with him." You do?

It's sort of weird, but kind of cool. I guess it's sort of what a celebrity feels like on a much smaller scale.

Also, all the other daycare parents know Jake. We only know a couple of the other parents, and I barely know any of the other kids.

People pretend that they don't like Christmas.

I've noticed that people openly groan about Christmas. "Oh no it's already here!" they'll say. Or "I haven't started my shopping," or "[groan] I have to put up my decorations soon".

People complain about how the stores are already decorating, and the stores put out advertisements saying how "busy" you are this holiday season and how stressful it is, so you should just buy their product.

Television commercials show stressed out people, awkward inlaws, terrible gifts. People complain about the corny Christmas music.

If this is all true, than why do we even celebrate Christmas?

The answer is that people actually like Christmas. It's cool to pretend that we don't, but we do. No one likes to admit this.

Even my co-worker was complaining about Christmas. Then I noticed through various comments that she liked Christmas. I confronted her. "You actually LOVE Christmas, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do..." she admitted.

Tiger Woods had 7 or 8 affairs while married.

Now that it's come to light Tiger Woods was cheating on his wife, I ask people if they're surprised. I get mainly two responses:

1) "Yes! I'm very disappointed. How could he do that to his wife? He's going to lose his sponsors."

2) "No big deal. He's a normal billionaire. They all cheat on their wives."

On the one hand, Tiger made a promise to be faithful to his wife. Breaking this promise, hurting his family and jeopardizing his career seems spectacularly dumb.

On the other hand, Tiger is a male human being whose genes have programmed him to want sex with as many beautiful women as possible. Even if his willpower is 99% - and surely as a professional athlete he's been propositioned over 100 times - the one time he makes a mistake brands him forever as a "cheater". (Of course he made 7 or 8 mistakes.)

Doesn't sound fair.

This situation brings up the fascinating question: is monogamy a natural state between two human beings? I don't know.

What I do know is that many male rodents deposit a plug of mucus inside the female's reproductive tract after they ejaculate. The mucus plug stops other male sperm from going into the female's vagina.

But the rat penis has a little suction cup at the tip. It sucks out the plug like a toilet plunger. Some females reach inside their vagina and pull out the plug with their claws. Then they eat the plug.

Will the Copenhagen climate summit change anything?

Right now the United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark between December 7 and December 18, 2009.



They've booked hundreds of limousines and hundreds of private jets - for the world's richest, most powerful leaders/politicians to tell us: Do as I say, not as I do.



Will this change anything? It's impossible to know but the following points are interesting things to consider, and may shape your answer.



* The richest countries got rich because they polluted and burned coal as they became industrialized. Now these same countries are telling the rest of the world not to do that.



* The plan of the conference is to give a UN body the power to directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and environmental affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty. Okay, how many countries will let that happen?



* The plan calls for the world's wealthy countries to give $150 billion each year by 2020 to help poorer countries transition to a low-carbon development path. Except the money will probably come out of existing aids budgets. If the money comes from money already earmarked to go to developing nations, what's the point? It's like giving my son $10 to improve himself, but then taking the money out of his $10 allowance.

We got Jake to poop on the potty.

Last night, Jake was grunting so Cindy picked him up and put him on his potty. This is the first time we've managed to do this.

He wanted to get off, but Cindy showed him the switch where you can flush the toilet. It makes a little flushing sound. He liked the switch so he sat there flushing the toilet while he pooped.

Then we clapped and made a big deal and showed him his poop. He seemed a little surprised by the poop - I guess he's never seen his poop before. Then he tried to put his foot in it, but I held him back.

Good times!

Oh my GOD Michael Jackson died!!!!!!

Holy crap! Michael Jackson died of heart failure. Holy crap!

I remember growing up to Michael Jackson. I loved him. I had his Thriller and Off the Wall albums. My friend Jason dressed up as Micheal Jackson for Halloween.

He was great. At the end of the 80s he started getting a little weird. He burned his hair during the Pepsi commercial and then slowly disfigured himself through a succession of surgeries.

He became a bizarre, eccentric dude. I always felt sorry for him. Now he's dead. Hard to believe. They're saying it's a drug overdose. Poor guy. He was so young.

Not just a cliche.

I used to think that when parents were asked about the gender of their unborn child, and they said they didn't care, as long as the baby was healthy - I used to think they were lying.

I thought, they must care. The "healthy" thing was just what you were "supposed" to say. It was what society expected you to say.

Having a child with a disability, I can now tell you categorically that I was wrong. Cindy and I don't care at all if the baby is a boy or a girl. In fact, we don't often talk about the gender. If we do talk about the gender we only say neutral, practical things like, "If it's a girl, we have to buy a few pink outfits to get past the first few months."

This time we're not going to ask for the gender ahead of time. It's not that important, and we don't really want to know. What is important is HEALTH. That's really everything. That's all we care about.

It's certainly our biggest worry this time around.

Man in coma for 23 years was actually awake!

A fake news story came out a couple days ago: A man who was supposedly in a coma for 23 years was actually awake the whole time! Now he's communicating! It's a miracle!

Sure. And I'll sell you some real estate on the moon.

Anyway, I was thinking how horrible it would be if this was true. If everyone thought you were comatose 23 years. I think you would go insane from boredom. Literally you would lose your mind.
Then I got to thinking, imagine if you had discovered some ultimate and amazing fact about human nature during that time (because you had nothing else to do except observe humans and think).

Let's say that the observation you made would revolutionize human communication. Perhaps you noticed some subconscious way of communicating. Since you're comatose, this ground-breaking discovery would never be known!

Now that's frustrating. More frustrating than just being comatose. Being comatose and having some major discovery that you can't communicate.

The most depressing liquour store I've ever seen.

Last Friday I went to the liquor store I usually go to to buy beer. I always dislike going there and I could never pinpoint the reason why.

I think I figured it out. First of all, it's a sausage factory. All guys. No women ever go there. The only women who work there are young, female cashiers who try to dress slutty, but can't really pull it off because they're not that pretty.

Second, the line is huge.

Third, while standing in the huge line, I looked around at all the other customers and they all looked like me. It was freaky. They were all about my height and body type. They wore my kinds of clothes and they all looked tired, out-of-shape and scruffy after a day's work.

They were "me" at different ages. In front of me was a Jim who was 5 years older. Behind me was a Jim in his mid-twenties. We were all heading home to our families after a week at work, buying beer so that we could relax.

They were all standing in line with me. We were all together. I hated it. This is what I've become.

Men could never be pregnant.

I was talking to Cindy the other day and I mentioned something about men being pregnant. She laughed out loud, right in my face.

"What?" I said.

"NO WAY you could be pregnant!" she said.

She went on to describe how I'd be a super whiny ball of mush lying in bed all day and moaning. I'd demand to be served. I'd demand to be fed. I'd complain all the time.

"You know how grouchy you get when you're tired or hungry? Imagine that plus being sick all day long, plus not sleeping."

Then she felt a little bad for me. "It's not just you - I'm saying any man couldn't be pregnant. You guys are a bunch of wimps."


I tried to defend mankind, but she was right. We are wimps.

Cindy said, "If men had to have babies, the birth rate would drop to zero."

She said humans would go extinct.

The Amazing Kreskin

For our anniversary, Cindy bought me tickets to see the Amazing Kreskin for a 2 hour show in Maple Ridge. Kreskin is a legendary mentalist.

The show was pretty good. Most impressive is when he reads people's minds. He asks the audience if someone is thinking of a certain thing and then a person might raise their hand. He asks the person to stand and proceeds to "read their mind" by stating facts.

For example, Kreskin said, "Does 'bird' come to anyone's mind?"

A guy raised his hand and said, "I was just thinking of my bird."

Then Kreskin said, "Do you like music? Elvis Presley?"

The guy said, "My bird is named Elvis."

Then Kreskin nailed about 5 more facts, including the guy's birthday and roommate's name.

For some people, he'd only nail a few facts and then stop talking. For other, people he'd be on a role and nail 5 or 6 facts. He only made one mistake: He told a guy his birthday was in 78 but it was actually 58.

We hid his cheque in the theatre and he found it. He also did some fun hypnosis. Kreskin claimed that he wasn't psychic and he didn't do tricks. He didn't understand how he "knew" these things, but insisted there was no magic and no accomplices.

One thing I noticed is that he tells a lot of stories and tends to drone on and scatter his thoughts. At first I thought it was just because he was old. Then I thought he's doing it on purpose, telling us subconsciously what to do so he could later read our minds. Clever. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

It also occurs to me that I think Kreskin has perfect hearing and perfect pitch. He seems to hear things from people's voices and he's a whiz at the piano.

It was a pretty good show.

I'm amazed at construction.

I'm still amazed that we can build new highways and bridges. Construction workers never seem to be working. They're aways just standing around watching one guy dig a hole.

I'm even more amazed that they can keep roads and highways and bridges open, at the same time that they're re-building or improving these same roads. That whole idea of keeping traffic flowing while they build around the cars seems so impressive to me.

The other day I was driving down the highway and I saw a sign that said in two weeks they were closing the highway for 10 minutes at 1am. They knew 2 weeks in advance that they were closing the highway for 10 minutes! Talk about great planning.

And only 10 minutes? Hell they can close it for a few hours and I'd be impressed. But 10 minutes and in the middle of the night? They're being super nice and considerate. I wonder what they're going to be doing for that 10 minutes that compels them to close the road?