Sometimes a random good thing can happen.

A few days ago I said that we had taken Jake out of daycare. Sadly, we only gave the daycare about 8 days notice or so. The contract said we needed to give them 6 weeks notice.

I felt bad about it, but knew that they would keep our deposit. So we'd really be ripping them off only $500.

I told them and sent them a letter. They said no problem, and that was that.

Then a day later they phoned my cell and said, "We want to return your deposit as well."

I was like, "Wha???"

She said, "You guys have some special circumstances with Jake."

Here's the thing, these are new owners of the daycare. They've only been in charge for a month and they've only met Jake a few times. So they don't even really know us, nor were they around when we regisered Jake two years ago.

They're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts! Weird. But hey, I'll take it.

So there are still some good people out there in the world.

***

Cindy said that this may actually be a trick. Because they asked for our original contract that showed the deposit amount. She said that what they're really going to do is take that contract and use it as proof that we really didn't give them enough notice, and they're going to sue us and ask for the $500. Wow, that would be pure evil. I'm amazed Cindy would actually think of this.

Dreams are not real.

Here's a passage in a spiritual book I recently read. The book is called Journey to self-realization: discovering the gifts of the soul by Paramahansa Yogananda.

"In your dreams, you can make yourself whatever you want to be, you can do whatever you want to do. Sometimes you are sick, and sometimes rich, and son on. Mind can do anything in that dream state. When you learn how to control your mind during the waking state, realizing that its power is part of the consciousness of God, you can similarly have complete mastery over the body. Mediation upon the soul is the method by which the mind can be made to work its wonders under your control. When you find your true Self, the soul, you shall see that the body is nothing but an emanation of God."

I chose this passage because it's the sort of typical thing we hear when we read spiritual books. First of all, I don't really understand his point.

Second, the mind cannot control the universe. Your thoughts have no effect on the outside world. People who think this are dualists and dualism has been dead in philosophy and science since Rene Descartes.

Third, your mind does not give you complete mastery over your body. In fact, we don't really even control our minds. That's an illusion. This leads me to my fourth point:

Four, if you think about it, you can't even control your dreams. Literally in your dreams at night, you have no control, freedom or self-will. You are simply a robot moving from one scene to another. You do silly things and behave in bizarre ways.

As for your day dreaming, these can be controlled. Slightly. For a few moments. But if you've ever tried to sustain a daydream for more than a minute you will realize it's almost impossible to keep your mind focused. You'll start thinking about other things.

So there.

Thomas the train is a negative show.

In an older blog post I wrote how, as a parent, you learn to watch television critically. I argued that TV was much too flashy for children and is probably bad for their brains:

"The problem is that every time the screen on the TV changes it makes a little flash. In the old days, the screen didn't flash much because it didn't change much. Now when you watch TV, it's almost constant flickering and flashing."

I didn't mention content, but that's another thing you have to be aware of. Take the very popular show "Thomas the Tank Engine". It's a British show about a blue train named Thomas. And it's very bitter and mean spirited.

In every episode the trains are mean to each other, jealous, reckless or behaving badly. (It's a British show so what do you expect - British people are mean and cranky.)

I mentioned this to another parent and he said that I need to "get over it" and that Thomas has "good messages" and that I'm "too uptight". Maybe.

But Jake only has the attention for the first half of the show. He sees the meaness and then loses interest and never sees the resolution. Basically, he's being exposed to mean behaviour.

Most other shows are fine. The characters are nice to each other. My wife tells me that Care Bears is brutally horrible and that they're vicious to one another.

And of course Looney Tunes is bad because it's violent and mean. Don't think it's on much anymore as it's no longer poltically correct. My friend informs me it's on every day on Teletoon Retro. Oh.

The Hunger Games

I read some good teen fiction last week: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

The book does just about everything right. Good writing, interesting plot, the perfect mix of violence and excitement, good characters.

It takes place in a creepy, alternate world in which they put a bunch of kids in an arena and watch them kill each other for fun. That sounds pretty brutal - but remember the book is for young adults.

There is some brutality, but Collins doesn't go overboard. Mostly it's just exciting and fascinating. I've already put a hold on the sequels Catching Fire and Mockingjay (out in Aug, 2010).

I'm hoping when the movie comes out, it won't ruin the story.

5 Random Things I Hate (part 5)

1) I hate when you go to a public bathroom and there's a series of instructional signs about how to wash your hands, step-by-step, with helpful photos. Cmon people. At this stage of the game if you can read and follow instructions but don't know how to wash your hands, you should be killed.

2) I hate when you get a bill in the mail and there's an extra flyer in the envelope, printed on glossy paper, in colour, that explains how the company is so environmentally friendly. Stop killing trees you liars!

3) I hate when restaurants advertise that their food is "made from the freshest ingredients". I hope so! I hope that I'm paying $20 for fresh ingredients! The fact that you're telling me this makes me suspicious of you. Now I don't want to eat your garbage food.

4) I hate it when you buy one item at a store and it prints out a never-ending receipt! Why does a receipt for one item need to be as long as my forearm? Sometimes there's more than one receipt. Why do I need two or more separate pieces of paper! Answer me!

5) I hate it when companies send you letters that say "we missed you!" No. You mean you missed my money. You don't me on a personal level, nor do you care. So tell it like it is! Write me a letter that says "We miss your money!" Always replace "money" with my name in any personal correspondence.

If I could go back in time I wouldn't be able to convince myself to invest in the internet.

If I could travel back in time to the glory days of the internet - back when I was in university - I wouldn't have been able to convince myself to invest in all today's popular websites.

I would have thought that Google was impossible. How can a search engine search the entire internet in 0.1 seconds?

Youtube - no way. I would have argued that people would simply just watch TV. The quality is better and America's Funnies Home Videos was a pretty bad show - a website of home videos would be just as bad.

Twitter. I would have argued that Twitter is a useless service. Why would anyone type what they're doing and send it to all their friends? Why wouldn't they just tell their friends what they're doing or - better yet - just meet their friends in person. Same with Facebook, though I would have thought the concept was pretty cool.

I do remember being very impressed with email at the time.

Why I don't like the fantasy genre very much.

I'm not a huge fan of the fantasy genre. I'm not a hater, and I can certainly tolerate a good story. But I'm just not that into it.

From the library I borrowed Promethea Book One by Alan Moore and J.H. Williams, a fantasy graphic novel. While reading this I figured out why I don't like fantasy novels. The characters can't really die. Or if they do die, they can come back to life.

In this story, the main character is from a fantasy-realm that takes place in our imaginations and simply cannot die. That bores me.

How can I feel scared for a character if they can't truly die? If I know the character can come back to life, well, that's boring.

Same problem with video games. If you die you can always start over.

The most interesting worlds are the ones where death is permanent and inevitable. Like our world.

Jake is officially out of daycare.

Well it's official. Jake is finished daycare. His health is simply too fragile to risk going back. He's been in daycare only 2.5 weeks since January. The rest of the time he's been home sick.

He's very skinny now and has lost all the weight he gained in the Fall. Poor guy. The last time he got sick from daycare we said we'd give it one more try. He lasted 3 days and then was sick again.

So it's over.

Now the hard part is for Cindy to look after a two-year old at 30 weeks pregnant. Yikes. We might be able to get in-home support from the local association who funds Jake's daycare, but we'll see.

I drew a picture of Jesus and scared my wife.

Yesterday some religious people came by and wiggled a flyer through our door so that it landed inside our house. I felt annoyed, but that's beside the point. (Couldn't they just leave it on our porch with all the other junk mail?)

The flyer had an illustration of Jesus with his wrists bound in rope. It said something like, "Jesus died for your sins, what are you going to do for him?" He was also wearing a crown of thorns.

So I did what any good Christian would do and drew a picture of Jesus in my sketch book. It took about 35 minutes. Then I showed my wife who said it was scary. She said that my Jesus made it look like he wanted to kill her.

So I basically drew an evil Jesus.

Stillface.

I think that would be a good name for a comic book character: stillface. What power does Stillface have?

The power to render you livid by keeping his face blank at all times. By not engaging or reacting to you in any way!

Especially when you're angry. His face turns to stone. Still face! You have a complete tantrum and he does nothing. No reaction.

I watched a video on Youtube where psychologists were experimenting on babies. The Mom went stillface and the baby freaked out and started tantruming.

I needed Stillface yesterday at work. A woman phoned and started ripping into me, trying to get me going. I'm sorry to say she succeeded, a little. She got me slightly riled. Not much though and I managed to end the call pretty quickly.

But I could have been more monotone and Stillface. I could have infuriated her even more! Ah well. Until next time.

Procrastination can be good.

The next time someone says you're procrastinating tell them no, you're "incubating". Apparently this is a real thing. Incubation. (I read it on the internet so it must be true.)

People who procrastinate might actually be "incubating" their idea. Their brain brain works behind the scenes to process, sort and organize whatever they're working on. Then when they actually start the project they do much better.

I've noticed this with writing. I'll have a pretty good idea for a story or novel and, instead of sitting down and writing it, I feel compelled to mull the story in my mind for a few days, weeks, months.

The trick is forcing yourself to stop the mulling. Stop the incubation when it's complete. If you don't stop the incubation, it will turn into procrastination.

I think we all have a window for the things we need to do. Depending on motivation, money, skill, luck and circumstance the window is either open for a long time or a short time.

If the window closes and we miss our opportunity, it's very difficult to open it again. So the trick is to never let that window close.

Finally some excitement at work.

I've been waiting for awhile to have some excitement at work. Finally we got it. We had to cancel a sports tournament because the organizers hadn't followed some rules.

What an outcry! You'd think the world was ending with the angry phone calls and emails. These are 14 year old boys. Trust me, they'll get over it in about 24 hours.

Lots of hysterical people demanded that we be fired for enforcing the rules. Even a few people within the organization said we were in the wrong - which frankly shocks me.

If you don't want your team abiding by the rules, withdraw from the league. Play the other teams who also have agreed NOT to abide by the rules.

If you think the rules are unfair try to change them. There's a process for that.

If you none of the above applies, lead by example and teach your kids that self-sacrifice is sometimes the right thing to do.

I'm not renewing membership at Costco because I don't like shopping there.

It's such a pain shopping at Costco. Here's why:

- The parking lot is a zoo. I don't like busy parking lots.

- You have to pay to shop there. I hate paying a yearly membership fee to have the pleasure of spending my money there. I don't think I save enough to recoup the membership fee.

- I'm skeptical on whether it's really cheaper. I don't think it is when you take into account time, hassle and storage. I hate storing gigantic crates of food in my basement.

- I don't like all the rich people in Costco scrounging around like they're poor. Have some pride.

- Lineups. They're aways huge.

- They don't take Visa or Mastercard! Huh? Get with the 1980s.

- It's hard to find things because the store is so gigantic. If you want paper towels or toilet paper, you have to walk to the back corner of the store and it takes about a half an hour.

How to break someone.

I think sports psychology is a pretty interesting. I took a university course about it years ago and don't remember much from that course except that the professor was a flamboyant guy.

I was reading The fighter's mind : inside the mental game by Sam Sheridan and he tells the story about a chess teacher who grouped players into two piles: 1) Entities and 2) Cumulatives.

Entities believed that they were born with innate chess talent and skill. Cumulatives believed there was a step-by-step process to follow that would slowly improve their skills.

The coach gave both groups and impossible chess task. Both groups failed. But on the next problem he gave them, the entities were devastated. They shut down. They tended to fail again.

The cumulatives, on the other hand, did better.

I'm not sure how true this story is because I heard the exact story in another book phrased as a scientific experiment. Pretty interesting though.

Then he talked about "big punchers" in boxing. These are guys who have one huge, invincible punch. Like Mike Tyson.

If a big puncher hits a guy and he can take it, and the big puncher does it again and again - the opponent taking all the punishment with no problem - eventually the puncher's spirit breaks and he gives up.

A discussion about the 500 mile diet.

Last summer my sister was telling me about the 100 mile diet. You only eat things grown within 100 miles of your house. She said it’s good for the environment and benefits the local community and economy.

I asked her why I should spend more on food and suffer the inconvenience of not having oranges or certain fruits, so that local farmers could make more money? In other words, what’s in it for me?

We had a back and forth for awhile and then I was all motivated to post the ideas we discussed to this blog. Then I just didn't bother. I didn't feel like it.

Now one of my coworkers is telling me the same thing and I'm annoyed. She started aggressively telling me about this 100 mile diet, while I ignored her.

When she stopped talking I said. "You and I have a different mindset. I totally disagree with you."

Then she said, "Let's hear what you have to say!"

I said, "No, I'm not going to get into with you at work."

Then she went on for a few minutes about how she hates buying chicken at the supermarket and only buys organic eggs laid by free range hens.

I said, "I don't want to pay more money for inferior local food. No thanks."

She said, "It will only cost more until the infrastructure is built!"

I said a couple more things about liking eating oranges and melons in the winter. Then I turned away from her and stared at my computer. I could hear her still talking about it, all riled up.

At one point I glanced up and she was waving a banana at me.

Lesson: Don't argue with socialist co-workers about fad ideas. They'll wave a banana at you.

Phone voice.

Everyone has a phone voice. It's the voice you use to talk on the phone. When the phone rings and you don't know who it is, your voice sounds deeper, more cautious.

Then when you recognize your friend on the other line your vocal chords relax. You smile and make yourself sound cheery.

I had a telephone interview last week and I wanted to sound enthusiastic. My normal voice is monotone and dull. No one would hire me based on my voice.

So I phoned Cindy and practiced talking enthusiastically and energetically. She laughed and said I sounded like a child. So then I made my voice sound less enthusiastic and she said I sounded depressed.

I can't win.

My boss has an extremely loud phone voice. He shouts when he's on the phone. I hate being forced to listen to other people's phone conversations.

I also hate talking to people on digital phones. They're about half a second too slow so you and your partner sound like you're constantly interrupting each other.

Remember rotary phones? I bet I wouldn't know how to use one. It would take me a few moments to figure it out.

Remember when touch tone came out? It was so fast.

Why do artists paint bowls of fruit?

In any art gallery you see lots of bowls of fruit. You also see flowers and vases and even some cubes. Why?

Bowls of fruit can't be the most exciting things to draw. I'd like to ask my sister - as she seems to know a lot about art through her boyfriend.

Anyway, I think it's because fruit are shapely, colourful objects that are pretty easy to find in your house. Many of the beginner art books use fruit as drawing examples - they have good combinations of colours and nice, shiny lighting effects.

Same with flowers and vases and cubes. Good practice for shading or drawing. You can draw or paint a bowl of fruit in an endless number of ways - and each way can make the fruit look different in terms of texture or mood.

I'm going to go draw an apple now.

When did you give up trying to convince your boss of anything?

I gave up after about 6 months. I realized that I was never going to change his mind, so I didn't bother trying.

Before that period I tried to persuade and argue. I was all motivated and energetic. Slowly, as I saw idea after idea never become implemented, I made fewer and fewer suggestions.

Eventually I stopped making suggestions altogether. I reasoned that since none of my suggestions were implemented, it would be useless to continue to make suggestions.

I also noticed that my boss forgot things within a few days. At first I energetically reminded him about his decisions, figuring that everyone forgets every now and then, and that it's helpful if someone reminds you.

Then I began to realize that he forgot A LOT of stuff. And would often change his mind. I began to realize that what I did ultimately didn't matter. If I reminded my boss of something, he would just forget a few days later.

Or he would remember but only partially remember and it would be a bastardized version of the original idea. Or he would forget the ultimate purpose of the idea or give credit or criticism to the wrong person.

It became clear that it was much easier to simply not do anything. I think this is called "learned helplessness". The idea here is that you can do two things when you have this kind of boss:

1) Spend a lot of energy trying to get your way, and probably failing.

2) Spend no energy trying to get your way and not failing - but then not really getting what you want.

When I spoke to people about this situation the (fatalistic) advice I got was, "You're not going to change these people's minds so don't bother. Just do what they want and concentrate your energy elsewhere."

Following this advice is certainly easy, but unsatisfying.

Disposable diapers are a marvel of engineering.

A couple days ago I posted a message about how I hate sippy cups because they were over-engineered and still crappy.

Well, today I wanted to say how impressed I am with disposable diapers. I'm shocked at the amount of urine and poop they can hold. The diapers are pretty small to start with, but as they absorb liquid, they get huge.

One time we didn't plan on swimming and Jake only had a diaper, but we took him in the lake anyway. When he got out, the diaper was hanging down to his ankles. It was like a huge water balloon.

I had measured the lake water and it had receded 5 cm.

On the box it says that one diaper can last for 12 hours. So, in theory, a child really only needs 2 diapers a day - making disposables suddenly very cheap.

When you're a new parent everyone urges you to buy reusable diapers. Yeah right!!! What a waste of money and time and inocnvenice that would be. Imagine changing the diaper every hour. Imagine the leaks and accidents and extra wash you'd need to do because the clothes would be soiled.

Imagine throwing a poopy diaper into laundry with your clean clothes. I say stick with disposable. They're cheap, easy to find, easy to do up, come in a variety of sizes and brands, often go on sale, and come with coupons for other products.

Tell me one thing wrong with disposables!

Life advice from a 20 year old.

I was reading an online discussion about life and someone posted a long message about advice and wisdom, and the things they've learned in life. About halfway through the post they mentioned they were 24 years old.

I stopped reading. To be fair, I was basically only skimming the article anyway so I probably would have stopped in the next few seconds because I just wasn't interested.

As soon as I saw they were in their 20's, I automatically discounted everything they said. Remember when you were in your 20's? How wise were you back then?

I might take life advice from someone my age. Might. Especially if they've had a harder life than me and seemed to be coping well with the challenges. Someone in their 40s, I'd listen to. In their 50's and 60's, yes. 70s and up, surely.

While older people are the most qualified to offer advice, we rarely ask them. We equate old age with declining mental ability. So the people who can offer us the most wisdom and guidance, we ignore because we think they're no longer smart enough.

Sippy cups are over-engineered.

I hate sippy cups. They're expensive, over-engineered pieces of crap that only work 50% of the time.

When they do work, they break after a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, right now Jake can only drink from sippy cups - so we have to buy them. We have about 20 of them.

We tried a new one yesterday and Jake wouldn't drink from it. I started getting mad at him. Then Cindy gave me the cup and said you try to drink from it; I tried and did not have enough sucking power in my lungs to get any liquid from it.

That's ridiculous.

Each sippy cup comes encased in a monstrous plastic shield that can only be removed by a chainsaw.

They come in a million different pieces, and you have to read instructions on how to put it together. Invariable, once you've assembled the cup, it leaks.

You can't wash it in the dishwasher or it will warp the sensitive plastic. The nipples are cheap pieces of crap that break when your child bites them.

Can you buy nipples separately? Yes - for the most part. But some sippy cups require that you buy a whole new cup every time the nipple breaks. (!)

Each piece of the sippy cup looks like it could fit in any other sippy cup. So, if you're using and washing 2 or 3 different sippy cups, you have a jumble of pieces that may or may not fit correctly together.

I've taken a picture so you can see this for yourself.

The Koreans are hardcore when it comes to schooling.

At the elementary school where I work we have a group of Koreans who come and take classes from about 3pm until 8pm. They're international students, sent away from their parents in Korea to learn English and experience our education system.

From 8am to 3pm they're in our school, then until 8pm they're in "Korean" school. They also go to school Saturdays.

These kids are young - 10 years old. Wow, that's hardcore. But apparently it's the norm in Korea. The children there apparently have 12 hour working days. After "regular" school, their parents send them to academies at night where they learn even more.

Apparently there's immense, cultural and parental pressure to succeed in school. If you don't get top marks, you don't get admittance to university or good jobs. Your station in life is directly correlated to your marks and your academic success.

I heard tests are mostly multiple-choice and there is very little teaching and promotion of creativity.

Nice to see our Korean overlords are building drones to one day rule over us and ensure we conform.

Positive thinking is an ideology.

I'm finally reading Bright-sided : how the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich, a book about the problems with "positive thinking". I mentioned it in a blog post a few months ago.

I mentioned how corporations love use "positive thinking" to brainwash employees into thinking that downsizing and not getting pay raises is their own fault for having a poor attitude.

"Think of it as a massive experiment in mind control. 'Reality sucks,' a computer scientist with a master's degree who can find only short-term, benefit-free contract jobs told me. But you can't change reality... For now, you can only change your perception of reality, from negative and bitter to positive and accepting." p. 116

She describes the fundamental problem with positive thinking. If things are truly getting better, if the arc of things is going in a positive direction, why is positive thinking such a hard thing to do? Why do we have to "avoid negative people" and spend millions on books that urge us to say affirmations and brainwash ourselves?

"Why should half the world's population live in circumstances of relative squalor when it has been demonstrated that the principles of the market and free enterprise can lead to sustained economic development?" p. 168

She describes the beginnings of the Positive Thinking movement or "New Thought", often citing Norman Poole and Dale Carnegie books which urge you to fake it so that you can manipulate other people.

Popular pastors have now co-oped the positive thinking movement in religion. God now is about giving us stuff. He wants us to be rich. Ask him and you will receive.

She talks about "the law of attraction" and all the pseudo-science surrounding the far-fetched ideas about how our minds influence the universe, or how being happy helps you fight diseases like cancer.

The book ends with her ideas about how positive thinking ruined the economy because it made people take reckless risks like buying houses they can't afford since"the universe will manifest money and success for me".

She basically concludes that positive thinking is about denying reality. It's an ideology.

One of my favourite stories in the book is about a no-nonsense public relations guy who helps corporations deal with crises. He says that positive thinking just plain doesn't work in his industry. But corporations don't want to hear it.

When called in by companies to deal with a crisis, he starts by telling them 'I'm going to tell you something you're not going to like: ' A crisis is not an opportunity." p. 185

The difference between the Democrats and Republicans.

I'm fascinated by American politics. I don't know why. I guess I enjoy the silliness of a fake two party system, that really is only one party.

Yes, I think that the democrats and the republicans are basically the same party. All their leaders basically do the same thing. Obama is no different. He's authorized massive war, believes in bailouts for corporations and wants to keep the health care system about the same as it is now (he backed off on the public option).

Any republican president would have done the same thing. None of this is very insightful. What I find fascinating is that the republicans and democrats pretend they're different. They have silly arguments about abortion and gay rights etc. They want and need us to talk about these differences because on all the big issues they're the same.

Example: government spending. Both parties say they want and believe in fiscal responsibility. The US debt is now $12.4 trillion. So if both parties are for fiscal responsibility why does the USA owe so much money.

Example: war. Every president starts or gets involved in a major war.

Example: economy. Both parties believe in bailing out wall street. George W. Bush did it and then Obama continued it. Senator McCain said he would have done it as well (although now he changed his mind).

Example: health care. Both parties want to fix it, but not enough to make it a "free" single payer system. Obama said he did, and even had a super majority to do it, but got cold feet and backed down in the end.

The last example brings up a good point: Each party says they want certain things, but when they get the chance - they fail to deliver. That's because they don't really want it. The republicans will always be one vote shy of overturning Roe v. Wade and the dems will always be stopped just short of passing whatever fancy social service they brag about for years.

Each party will blame each other and try to get more votes. That's the way it is. Politicians are elected to preserve the system, not change it.

Are the rich really conspiring against the middle class?

I don't like it when the media exaggerates by throwing around big words like "meltdown" and "disaster". Today at the library I picked up a book called Rich Dad's conspiracy of the rich : the 8 new rules of money Robert T. Kiyosaki.

The first half of the book is about how the rich and elite have conspired to keep themselves rich. Now I recognize that people who tend to use the word "conspiracy" are a bit loony.

Do I really believe that the world's richest people gather in a room every few months and conspire to keep themselves rich? No, of course not.

But I do believe that rich people have built a complicated system of economics that is designed to preserve and increase their wealth. "Conspiracy" is just a catchy, entertaining word.

Here are the reasons we, in the middle class, are poor compared to the elite: (The explanations are mine - I'm not that far in the book to use the author's explanations yet.)

1) Taxes

We pay taxes to support our government, which often gives bailouts or handouts to the rich. Elites and corporations don't pay taxes cause they can hire fancy lawyers to help them find loopholes in the laws.

2) Debt

We've been told to buy things we can't afford.

3) Inflation

The rich and elite can print money through banks and monetary organizations and create complicated derivitives. If we print money, we go to jail for counterfeiting. When the banks print money, the value of the money we hold decreases.

4) Retirement

The rich and elite convinced us "Hey let us take care of your retirement. Give us your extra money and we'll make a return for you in the markets." Yeah right. We saw what happened with that in 2008.

Two things I like to "steal" from work.

I really enjoy taking a poop at work. Why? You're getting paid to poop! And you're using their toilet paper and their water and their soap. Again: they're paying you to poop and supplying you with all the needed equipment.

Afterward someone comes in and cleans up your mess. It's perfect.

I love charging my cell phone at work. I'm using their electricity. I won't get a large hydro bill in a month. Again: my work is paying for the power it takes to charge my cell phone.

These are the little things in working-life that you need to relish.

An easy way to lose your job.

If you want to lose your job, just get your wife pregnant. Works every time.

For example, when Jake was born in 2007, a couple months after his birth, and the day before his heart surgery, my employer took me into a room and said they were laying me off.

Flash forward to the present. My employer just told me they were ending my contract early because they ran out of money. When? The same week that my next child is due.

This technique of losing our job by getting your wife pregnant works really well during a recession. It also works well in a tight-labour market.

It's great because at about the time in your life when you're most sleep-deprived, broke, overworked and exhausted you also get to look for a new job.

Tough day for the little guy.

The little man had a hard day yesterday. Not hard like heart-surgery hard, but tough enough for a two year old.

First, he began getting sick. By the night he was crying and coughing and throwing up and dry heaving. Cindy had to sleep with him in the den because he was too upset to be alone.

At lunch he had no appetite but we didn't yet know that he was sick. It just so happened that today the behaviour analyst came by and when he was resisting, she wanted to play hardball by not offering rewards unless he swallowed. The poor guy lost it and started crying and hitting his head.

It was easily the worst meal in the last 6 months. A huge setback.

Last week was his first healthy week since December. We kept him home from daycare for two weeks until he recovered. Now he's sick again.

Poor guy.

Self-help is a way of avoiding death.

The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said that we humans often cope with the anxiety of our impending death through religion.

Another way we cope with death is to, "Bravely throw myself into acts of 'defiant self-creation'. In other words, by making something of ourselves. By self-helping ourselves so that we become immortal.

Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein sum up the idea in their book Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between:

Think positive thoughts! Dare to dream the impossible dream! Visualize great goals! Harness the secret powers of the law of attraction! Then my life will have meaning, and that meaning will transcend death. (p.40)

Perhaps. Or maybe self-help is just a way of trying to succeed. I think it's presumptuous to dismiss a whole ares of self-knowledge by saying "it's a way of denying death".

Although, I do find myself wanting to agree with Soren Kierkegaard. I generally think poorly of the self-help movement. I view it as a way of voluntary brainwashing yourself, and I think that self-help ultimately leads to depression through narcissism.

Toilet paper deflation.

Remember when double toilet paper rolls were so huge that you couldn't fit them on the roll? They were super fat.

Now they're not fat anymore. They're regular size.

The regular-sized toilet paper rolls, meanwhile, have become very tiny. They only have like 10 wipes.

This is called toilet paper deflation. And I'm proud to say that I made up that phrase myself. It also works with paper towels. There is paper towel deflation.

I think various food items are deflating as well. Those 100 calorie snack packs are examples of food deflation. You're paying more for individually wrapped food, less in quantity.

I think various fast food items are deflating in size. I remember the whopper and big mac seemed to be bigger when I was a kid.* Large fries were LARGE. Now large fries are regular-sized and if you want a large you have to order a SUPER-SIZED.

But back to the toilet paper: I like to read the label and read how many individual sheets come on each roll. Then I roughly look at price and try and figure out which toilet paper brand is cheaper, based on quantity and ply-level.

You know what? They're all about the same. There might be 10 cents to 30 cents difference between the packages.

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*Note: Of course, I was smaller, so relativity-speaking, they were bigger. The quarter-pounder hamburger could not have changed sized.

PS: I also recently noticed this with garbage bags. You have to look for the largest sized bags - the "giant super-sized bags". If not, you'll end up paying for tiny, useless bags that can't physically hold any garbage

The best way to train animals.

I wish I knew about clicker training when I was a kid. I'd have spent hours clicker training our dogs and cat. It's more fun than traditional training, more effective and a lot faster.

I just finished reading Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals by Karen Pryor. I'm interested in books about applied behaviour analysis, but the only ones I can seem to find are about animals.

Anyway, she talks about the joys of clicker training or "TAG" training for humans. It works like this, you click the clicker when the animal does something you want it to do, then you feed it a treat. The food is the primary reinforcer; the clicker is the secondary reinforcer.

Over time, the animals learn to love the sound of the clicker and it sort of becomes the primary reinforcer. Pryor takes a swipe at traditional, fear-based training techniques as slow, cumbersome and built on fear and discomfort. Not good at all.

Clicker training, on the other hand, becomes a sort of game that animals begin to enjoy. The click is the indication that the animal has done something good. The food is just the treat.

She talks about training a crab to ring a bell for food. She talks about training dolphins, dogs, horses, cats, elephants, fish and people with autism and down syndrome. Also athletes who need to perform complicated maneuvers like gymnasts or golfers.

There isn't much practical advice in the book, and I'm guessing you have to sign up for her (expensive?) training courses. Still, clicking is an emerging training trend that can help us to get animals to do what we want easier and faster.*

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* Of course, the animals think of it as training humans to give them treats, and that's fine too. It doesn't matter who's training who, as long as it works.