Summer Stupids

I have no empirical evidence to back this up but I’m fairly certain that summer weather turns people stupid when driving. It’s probably the combination of the heat and the extra traffic on the roads trying to get to sunny locations, like the beach or the ocean, that pushes the normally borderline moron into full-grade jackass. Lately I’ve seen people drift across lanes rather than signal and change lanes completely; a car double-parallel-parked with its emergency flashers on - as though the flashing lights somehow make parking in a traffic lane ‘alright’; countless bumper-chasers; people changing lanes in intersections; cyclists that ride on the road, expecting to be treated like vehicles, only to blow through 4-way stops; the list goes on with every sunny day. It makes me glad I don’t have to commute in a car to work, and my ladyfriend doesn’t have more than a 10 minute commute either. I think back to the days of driving between Pitt Meadows and central Burnaby every day, and I’m honestly surprised I didn’t go completely mad from the traffic hijinks.

Social Networks

Well, I’m three weeks into my self-imposed Facebook exile, and I’m coping just fine without it. There’s been a couple of instances where I’ve peered over my ladyfriend’s shoulder while she’s on the Facebook, and a few friends have posted photos that I’ll need to check out at the end of the month, but I’m confident that shortly after the start of August I’ll leave it behind. I’m still not sure if I’ll be deleting my profile altogether or just disabling it.

Of course I’m also prepared to become a hypocrite and sign up for Twitter after quitting Facebook. I railed against the uselessness of the Tweets recently, and if I do end up doing the Twitter-chatter, I’m fully aware of being branded a liar and a turncoat. But I blabbed about the uselessness of Facebook, too, before caving in and joining it three years ago.

Wordmangling

From time to time, during conversation, it’s fun to combine two words that usually don’t belong together. Technically this is called a portmanteau. For instance, my yearly birthday party is called a Horsetravaganza. Sometimes I call people Buttminster Fuller. You get the idea.

Lately I’ve seen the word glamping in magazines. What’s glamping? The word means glamorous camping, but it’s essentially camping for pussies.

Here’s what one Google search results describes glamping to be:

During a typical glamping trip, for example, the tents are often designed with bright designer colors and materials, not the olive drab canvas tents of yesteryear. These tents can be rigged for electrical power, which means occupants can operate appliances, reading lamps and climate controls. Forget about smelly sleeping bags placed on rocky or insect-infested ground, as well. Those who have gone glamping may sleep on full-size air mattresses, or even regular spring mattresses provided by the outfitters.

Now you have to understand, I’m not exactly Grizzly Adams when it comes to the great outdoors. I’m not going to scale a mountain and sleep on a rock and fight bears and grow a wicked beard. But I do enjoy simple camping in a tent, with a fire, roasting hot dogs and eating baked beans, reapplying sunscreen and mosquito repellent every hour. Camping isn’t glamourous, and it’s not meant to be. This is why the word glamping makes me sick with rage. It’s taking a simple act of sleeping outdoors and making it acceptable for the tanning-salon, high heels set. The type who couldn’t live without a hair dryer and a cell phone. Glamping might as well be hauling a mattress out onto a patio and calling it a trip to the great outdoors.

There’s other mangled words that I find annoying: Recessionista, a person who embraces the spirit of being poor by being thrifty when buying stuff. Never mind that in recessions people lose jobs and homes, and instead co-opt the misery and shop shop shop! Or metrosexual, which means something along the lines of a guy wearing nice clothes and being excessively groomed, but is basically a euphemism for ‘dressing like you’re gay’. Nothing like perpetuating the stereotype of gay guys being impeccably dressed - as though that’s the one thing gay guys should be remembered for.

TWIG Notes XXV

It’s the twenty-fifth installment of This Week In Garrett! And This Week In Garrett:

- Earth Day came and went with hardly any fanfare. Do people still care about Earth Day? It’s a pretty vague day to celebrate, and not long before that was ‘turn off all your lights for an hour’ day too. I can’t say we did anything special for Earth Day. I have a feeling people are generally tired of save-the-earth movements the last few years. Besides, what good does turning off lights really do when there’s an oil rig leaking crude oil, non-stop, into the ocean? Or when an Icelandic volcano does more in one week to reduce CO2 emissions - by grounding airplanes - than any human effort?

- Saturday was probably the last stag I’ll ever attend, as my friend Nigel is being wed in a few weeks. We went to Castle Fun Park for activities, Sammy J. Peppers for food, and the Caddyshack for naked ladies. Funny story: at CFP we all tried our hands at a strong-man hammer device, where you smack a giant target with a hammer to measure your strength, on a scale of zero to one thousand. Everyone hit about 830; I hammered home about 710. Standing around waiting, we watched an eight year old kid, a 40-ish mom, and an elderly man all beat my score.

- I had roughly two and a half weeks to read Fordlandia, a book detailing Henry Ford’s dallying in the Amazon to try to grow rubber and to create a picture-perfect Norman Rockwellian town in the middle of the jungle. It’s a fascinating insight into early capitalism and cultural ignorance, but also an interesting account of Henry Ford’s blend of common sense and craziness. He felt people should be paid well, be able to buy whatever they need, learn to grow gardens and provide for themselves, but also feared government, was adamant about prohibition, and had a lot of bad things to say about Jews. I strongly recommend reading it.

- Earlier in the week I bought tickets to see Metric, at the Malkin Bowl at Stanley Park. The ladyfriend and I haven’t seen a concert since May 2007. Metric is a pretty hip Canadian band right now, and I missed out last time they came (to be fair, I wasn’t ‘into them’ as much at that time). Ticketmaster fees paid on two tickets: nearly $40.

- There’s a few things I really like about working in downtown Vancouver: it’s a transit hub; there’s nearly endless options for lunch; ample people-watching opportunities; and a bank machine is always nearby. One of the events I always love to see, however, is expensive cars being towed while their car alarms are going off. I’ve seen it happen a few times: rich asshole driving a Bentley or Rolls or [insert stupid imported car type here] parks in front of a fire hydrant, or a loading zone, or simply a spot where parking isn’t allowed, no doubt thinking he’ll just be a few minutes while he gets his cufflinks polished or her implants massaged. It takes about 60 seconds for a tow truck to string the car up and drive away, and it brings me great joy knowing that the rich person in question is going to have to deal with a tow truck driver or impound lot, no doubt furious that he or she has to deal with the lower-class plebs that shop at Mark’s Work Warehouse. Having lots of money and an expensive car does not grant special parking privileges.

- I subscribe to GQ magazine, and I’ve noticed a marked decrease in females featured in its pages. Last month’s issue had zero photo spreads of hot celebrity women; this month’s has one photo. When I started subscribing there’d be at least 2-3 pages of some cleavagey trollop per issue, but lately they’ve seemingly been replaced by ads of oily hairless dudes in their underpants. I think GQ is trying to turn me gay.

Seems to me a Strange Thing. Mystifying.

It’s that time of year again, when the Western world observes a holiday to celebrate the death of a well-meaning hippie who told everyone to be good, and whose simple message was combined with a bunch of other parables to create the greatest story ever told: Seaquest DSV The Bible. It’s Saturday today, which marks the time between that same hippie being buried in a cave and the day he came out to save everyone by selling candy-coated chocolate eggs. Or something like that. I haven’t read the Bible, so I’m not clear on the specifics.

But wait! There’s something that’s replaced the story of Jonathan Brandis Jesus Christ this year, and has given us a new idol to cherish. The Apple iPad. In case you’ve been dying in living in a cave, let me fill you in: the Apple corporation has released its latest gadget that costs half a thousand dollars and will be obsolete by this time next year, but will give you the opportunity to do all the stuff you already do on the computer you already own, except now you get to do those things by pointing a finger on a screen.

Look, I own an iMac and an iPod Touch. I bought the iMac because I made the switch five years ago and can’t be bothered to switch back to Windows. I barely use the iPod Touch anymore, because the battery keep dying when I try to look at porn. But I get it - Apple makes computery activities look cool. It’s half advertising, half product design, and Apple has mastered both. But the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, it’s all just gadgetry. It has a shiny screen and goes bleep and bloop and lets you play Tetris and check the weather and find out what street you’re on. That’s all very nice, but let’s remember what Jesus Moses taught us: don’t worship dumb shit. Seriously, it’s what he said God said to say to us. I’m not implying that Jesus is better than the iPad (although Jesus did have a sweet beard, and the iPad does not), and I’m not really sure if people should worship anything, but I do think humans in our part of the world need to quit putting their gadgets on a pedestal. There are better things to do with one’s time and money. Like sleep and horde, which is what I do.

The Twitter-chatter

I generally think Twitter, the latest internet communication fad, is stupid. Even though it’s essentially a sound-bite reduction of blogging, I think it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t allow for explanations of anything, or deep thought; it’s just a sentence or two at a time. Thing is, Twitter’s become a go-to place for contests, coupons, giveaways, and the Holy Grail of internet timewasting: celebrity culture. Before Twitter there was no way for anyone to find out what your favourite actor or athlete or singer was up to (which in actuality isn’t terribly interesting anyway). But the fact is, it gives people the impression of being closer to a celebrity than ever before. And it’s a weakness that I have and I’m ashamed of - I want to pretend that I can peer into the life of [insert name of hot actress here], or to be eligible for a contest, or some other useless thing, and it makes me think I should sign up for Twitter.

What’s stopped me? Three reasons, really.

1. Twitter will no longer be popular in three years.
2. Twitter will contribute nothing to my life.
3. I’ve voiced my disdain for Twitter for too long to give in now.

But blogging? Totally superior to Twitter.