onomatopoeia http://www.onomatopoeia.org Hear that? Copyright 2001-2006 Matt Musselman Fri, 18 May 2012 00:11:55 +0000 matt@onomatopoeia.org matt@onomatopoeia.org Tex-dar http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2011-08-16
Guy 1: I don't get how Sheldon [from the Big Bang Theory] is supposed to be Texan. He's like the most un-Texan guy ever.
Guy 2: What do you mean?
Guy 3: No. There's no way he is. You mean the character? Or the actor?
Guy 2: Both I think. He grew up in Austin1 or something.
Guy 1: Yeah, but you'd think that it would figure into the story somehow.
Guy 2: It does, sometimes. Like that episode where he went over to Raj's house for chili and asked Raj if it had beans in it, and when Raj said yes, he answered, "Then that's not chili. In Texas chili doesn't have beans in it."
Guy 3: Oh yeah, and later he's saying, "Mmmm, this is good, this . . . whatever it is." Okay, now I remember I guess.
Guy 1: [To Guy 3] but you see what I mean, right? I mean, if he was in the room here, you'd have no idea he was from Texas. But if an actual Texan was here, I would probably know it. That's what I'm saying.

Considering I was the only other person eating in the restaurant at the time, I was really debating whether I should go introduce myself, or just sit there and laugh at them internally.

1 I'm well aware myself that Jim Parsons is from Houston and not Austin, but considering that most British Columbians in general have very little understanding of the geography of various cities in Texas, I can forgive these guys.]]> Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0800 Mattobserved,texas our texas http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2011_08_16 Thirteenahedron http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2011-01-31 The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield.

The setting is atmospheric, the writing beautiful, the family of characters twisted and depraved and Faulkneresque. It's everything a gothic epic should be.

Furthermore, last night I'd just finished a really inspiring conversation with some friends about the importance of inspiration and progress in writing, as opposed to getting too hung up in editing and fact-checking and details.

And then shortly thereafter, upon arriving home and picking up The Thirteenth Tale again for some pre-bedtime reading, I tripped over this inexplicable passage:
"It's not a dodecahedron," she told him slyly. "It's a tetrahedron."
The doctor rose from the bench, stepped toward the topiary shape. One, two, three, four . . . His lips moved as he counted.
...
But he reached six and stopped. He knew she was right.


Nevermind the situation that they're counting faces of a topiary. I promise you, in the context of the scene it's much less silly than it sounds.

But I was still dealing with how the difference between a dodecahedron and all its round soccer-ball-like charm and the succinct pointiness of the pyramid-shaped tetrahedron would require counting, rather than a quick glance, to resolve. . . . (Maybe he simply had the wrong name rather than the right shape? But then why would he count? So he knew a dodecahedron only had four sides but couldn't tell that the topiary must have been hiding a whole bunch of sides somewhere if he could only see two or three from his viewpoint?)

. . . until I got to the part about him stopping counting at six, at which point no explanation worked at all.

And, in the way I seem prone to do, I've been obsessing about it for 12 hours now.

No, don't worry, this is truly a trivial scene in the book. I've spoiled nothing for you, and neither does the answer to this mystery bear any significance on a single piece of the story after that. I think it was merely a trope used by the author and/or her narrator to demonstrate that the woman was equally as mathematically gifted as the doctor. It's just be being sort of neurotic.

But still, what possible explanation appropriately rationalized both how the difference between the two Platonic solids wouldn't have been immediately obvious just by looking?
And where the real answer apparently had fewer sides than the initial answer, but with at least six? (Disqualifying the lowly four-sided tetrahedron....)

Icosahedron? — Easy to visually confuse with a dodecahedron, but has more sides (20) rather than fewer, so wouldn't logically make sense in the dialogue, and wouldn't have been obvious after counting only six sides.
Cube? — First, who doesn't know what a cube is? And it seems that the doctor stopped at six even though there were more sides to count.
Octahedron? — Fits with the side-number criteria. However, I question how much an octahedron looks like a dodecahedron, but it's the best I can come up with. And I guess I could buy that an other would get the names tetrahedron and octahedron mixed up.

Would the author think I'm utterly crazy if I wrote her to ask? Or just that I'm a jerk for pointing out a trivial mistake she made?

Still, it's bugging me.


]]> Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800 Mattmedia http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2011_01_31 Steak, Texas Style http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2011-01-16
Luckily for the rest of you, it's not a secret. I've been working on my steak-making technique for a while and have no qualms about sharing it, including here.

I. Buying a Good Steak

The first step to cooking a good steak is having a good steak to cook in the first place.

You need to find a decent butcher or meat shop. Occasionally your corner grocery store will have some fairly decent steaks, and for every day "What's for dinner?" kind of cooking, that's okay, but you wouldn't be reading this if you just wanted to make an ordinary steak. We're making The Perfect Steak, remember?

What you want is a shop that has a large variety of fresh, high-quality meats, and whose staff is knowledgeable to answer your questions about them. The butcher I currently go to has three different grades of ribeye steaks alone, for example. More on that later.

So you've found a good butcher. Now you need a good cut of meat. Different people have different opinions on this, but I'm almost exclusively a ribeye fan. Some people like sirloins or filets or T-bone steaks, and those are okay, but for tenderness, taste, and quality, you can't beat a ribeye. I've even been to a couple of premium steakhouses where it's the only cut they will serve. If you trust me on this just once, and if you still don't like it, you can go back to whatever you're used to. The "loin" cuts like filet mignon, T-bone, and porterhouse are also quite good. However, sirloins (no matter what a store tells you) are a step below those, and absolutely do not settle for round steak, chuck steak, or nameless cuts of meat like "grilling steak" or "broiling steak" — these are basically hamburger in solid form, and certainly mean you didn't follow my directions about finding a good shop.

Assuming you've trusted me so far and you're after a ribeye, and you want The Perfect Steak, just getting the right cut alone isn't everything. Grade matters, as does which specific variety of cut, and AAA (or Prime, in the US) is the best you can get. If the shop tells you they don't carry AAA / Prime, it's another sign you may not have succeeded in following my instructions about finding a good shop. You can settle for AA / Choice if that's truly all you can find (the meat is still good, just less well-marbled — see below), but that's a last resort.

Finally, to really take this steak purchase to the top (especially if you only need 1 or 2 steaks total) ask for the end cuts — the ends are the tenderest bits of the ribeye, which is already more or less the tenderest cut of beef overall. If the end cuts are already gone (ha, someone beat you to them), just go for the steaks with the heaviest marbling (in other words, lots of fat, but what you're looking for isn't the thick fat at the edges, but all the tiny lines of fat spread throughout the meat). Also, good steaks are usually aged for extra taste, and the best aged steaks will have a really dark maroon tint to them, possibly even a little bluish, like a red wine. Most people are turned off by the dark hue and ask for the really fire-engine red cuts of meat because they look "fresher," but now you know better. Also if it's a good butcher, they should be able to give you some guidance on which are the best ones.

So, in summary what you're after is:
  • Beef ribeye (or rib steak, if that's the best you can find)
  • Grade AAA (in Canada) or Prime (in the US)
  • Cut about one inch thick – thinner steaks are too easy to accidentally overcook
  • End cut, or at least the most heavily marbled, best aged cuts they have

    • Remember, if you're paying a premium for highest quality steaks (and these will run you $10-$15 apiece, just to warn you), it's a waste not to take the opportunity to get exactly the ones you want.

    II. Preparation

    What you'll need:
  • Your steaks
  • A good heavy cast iron skillet, or if that doesn't work, a heavy stainless steel pan with a steel handle (you're going to be heating it in an oven, so no plastic handles or anything else which will melt).
  • A good quality flaky sea salt (I like Maldon salt)
  • A peppermill with whole black or assorted peppercorns in it
  • Oregano (my choice is Mexican oregano because it tastes less pasta-like, but use what you can find). Other herb mixes are okay, too, but I keep coming back to simple oregano.
  • Butter, lots of it
  • Optional: garlic, or that garlic juice that comes in the spray bottle

    • You've got your carefully selected steaks home, and now you're staring at them. What do you want to do?

    First, dry them off. Paper towels work best. Get those things as dry as you can. It seems weird, I know, but every drop of moisture remaining on the steaks anywhere is going to boil that part of the steak as it cooks, and boiled meat is tough and tasteless, and that's not what you're after.

    After the steaks are good and dry, you need to season them. On each side, give them a generous dose of sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, and oregano. You can use a lot of salt, especially if your butter is unsalted. Honestly, I've only overdone the salt once and even then the steaks were still very good. Once it's all sprinkled, I like to rub and poke it into the meat with my fingers, to embed the spices into the steaks so they won't fall off when cooking.

    III. Cooking

    Preheat your oven to 425F, with your skillet inside the oven on the middle rack. The skillet needs to be HOT when you drop those steaks onto it.

    Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt the butter and get it plenty hot (you don't want it cooling down the skillet later). You'll want at least 1/4cup of it — more if you like. It's even better if you can heat the butter long enough to boil most of the water out of it (remember what I said before about boiled meat?).

    When the oven is at temperature, and possibly a little longer to make sure the skillet is all the way heated as well, turn on the oven's top broiler if it has one. Then, pour enough of the butter into the skillet to coat the bottom. It'll sizzle like crazy, and that's okay. Quickly drop the steaks into the butter and close the door.

    For a doneness just between rare and medium rare, it consistently takes about three minutes a side. For medium, it's about four. If you want it more done than that, wrap up those really terrific steaks, take them back to the butcher, and tell them you just found out you don't deserve steaks that good, and to give you some cheap round steaks instead. I'm serious. If you're going to overcook your steaks, don't waste your money: everything at medium-well or higher tastes the same as cheap meat, so it might as well be cheap meat. And even if you usually like your steaks a bit more done, just this once try them medium at four minutes a side, and I bet you'll change your mind forever (if you still don't like the steaks that way, I guess you can toss them back in for another minute or two to top them off).

    IV. Post Cooking

    Your steaks are going to come out of the broiler seeming really floppy and a bit underdone. That's because they're going to keep cooking for another minute or two on the plate as they cool down. With a pair of tongs lift the steaks onto plates and let them "rest" for a minute or two.

    Lastly, immediately before serving, rub a halved garlic clove on the surface of each steak, or, if you're slightly lazy like I am, give each steak a quick spritz of garlic juice. It's a small touch, but it makes the aroma so much richer.

    Serve. I always like pairing a good steak with mashed potatoes and some fresh steamed veggies.

    Feel free to add a little extra salt or cracked pepper to the steaks to taste.

    And it probably goes without saying that you didn't go to this much cost and trouble just to cover the thing in barbecue sauce or steak sauce — those things were invented to hide the fact that you bought the cheapest steaks possible, which, this time, you did not.

    Also, if you need anything other than a butter knife to cut your finished steaks, you either didn't follow my instructions about the meat quality, the skillet, or the butter. I haven't used a steak knife at home in years.

    This is the kind of steak you would be paying $35 – $50 a plate for in a restaurant, and I've just taught you how easy it is to do it at home for less than a third of that.

    And now that you've got the secret, practice it a few times, and then go impress somebody. That's right — got a new boyfriend / girlfriend? Looking for a promotion from the boss? Give your husband or wife a special treat? There you go. And if they're vegetarian, maybe one day I'll post my secret recipes for non-carnivore treats, so I guess you're out of luck for now.

    ]]>     Sun, 16 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800 Mattfood http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2011_01_16     The Great Dental Debacle http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2010-12-06
    Every time I've visited the dentist since then, they insist on putting liquid nitrogen (I assume that's what it is — it's insanely cold) first on that tooth, and then a neighbouring tooth, to prove just how dead it is.

    So after my last cleaning and checkup a couple of weeks ago, I finally took the plunge. "Okay, fine. You can do the root canal. Just tell me what I'm supposed to do."

    I'd never had a root canal. I'd always heard bad things about them. You know, people wouldn't facetiously say things like "I'd rather have a root canal" if root canals were especially pleasant, because that wouldn't make any sense. I mean, imagine asking someone if they're looking forward to work on Monday, and they say, "I'd rather have ice cream." Um, okay, so does that mean you want to go to work or not? You never know. But if they'd rather have a root canal, you can be pretty damn certain they're not in the mood to work.

    And I was pretty damn certain I wasn't in the mood for a root canal.

    Nevertheless, at Friday at 4pm, I was scheduled for my root canal. They called me on Wednesday to remind me. They called me again on Thursday to remind me. They called me Friday morning to confirm again. Maybe it was my tone of voice, but for whatever reason they really thought I was going to get cold feet about this situation.

    Friday at 4pm rolled around, and I dragged myself up onto the dentist's chair. "I'm a little worried about this," I told them. "I've never had one of these before"

    "It'll be fine," they answered. "Root canals actually have sort of a bad reputation, and they're not so bad. Pretty quick and painless. Besides, that tooth is dead, so you're really not going to feel a thing." Hmmm.

    But you know what? Forty minutes later, it was done. All over. And I didn't feel a thing. It was great. If you could say that about a root canal. But it did seem great. Well, until then it was great. After that was when things started going off course.

    "We're going to put a temporary crown on the tooth now, and then you need to book an appointment to come back for the permanent crown," they told me.

    "I thought I'd asked to do it all at once?" I asked.

    "Yes, we're doing the temporary crown today in this visit, where most people want to rest and do it separately, but you still have to book a followup visit for the permanent crown."

    Sigh. I started to clue in that this was becoming a much more complicated set of plans than I had anticipated. By the time I left the dentist's office, I had two more visits in store for me:

    1. A stop by the dental lab in Coquitlam to match the crown colour with my other teeth, important since it was a front tooth. "You don't need to make an appointment or anything," the dentist said. "Just call them when you're on your way. Go as early as you can so as not to delay the process. Saturday, if you can."

    2. A return visit the following Saturday for the crown fitting.

    These were in addition to the two visits I'd just had for the cleaning and the root canal itself. This was also before two more things happened.

    1. I called the lab first thing Saturday morning to make sure they were open. Automated message: "Our office hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday." Great. I guess I'm going to have to miss work Monday to do this. They totally didn't give me the right information on this one. Jerks.

    2. Later that day on Saturday my phone rang. "Hi, it's ****** at ****** Dental Clinic. Um, we messed up your impression and need you to come back to redo it." Uh, what?!? "Yeah, we can't get the permanent crown made until we get this right." I told them I supposed I could drop what I was doing and swing by there in an hour or two, and they agreed I could come by around 5pm that afternoon. No big deal. Until they called me back again: "No, the dentist says it's actually going to take an hour or more to redo this, so we'll have to delay until next Saturday, which is the earliest we can work you in. Will that work for you?" I asked, since it was their mistake, if they might be more flexible. "No." But what about my existing appointment on Friday? "We can't make the crown until after the impression, so that's going to be delayed about a week."

    "Man, how could this get any worse?" I thought to myself. Trust me, when it comes to dentists, don't ever tempt fate by asking that. Really. Don't.

    Because two hours later, while I was munching on one of the goodies at a party we'd gone to, I noticed that my cheese was suddenly . . . crunchy. Why, you might ask? Because I was now chewing up my temporary crown. That's right — barely a day after they'd installed the thing, and it was disintegrating. And unless I could at least get the pieces back in, I was going to look like a toothless pirate until they could fix it.

    The good news is that I was able to sort of smash the big part of it back in place so that no one could really tell anything was amiss.

    The bad news is that the crown was basically being held in place by the power of prayer, and I couldn't eat anything for the rest of the party. I hadn't had any dinner. I was starving.

    I called the dentist's office first thing in the morning, and they agreed to take me for an emergency repair at 2:30pm. I barely ate breakfast (just a small bowl of congee), all the while being super careful that nothing hard and pointy felt like it was going down my throat. I didn't even bother with lunch. Every time my stomach growled, I could feel the loose crown vibrating sympathetically against my gums.

    After I sat down in the chair for the third time in so many days, the dentist (a different one, since mine was off for Sunday) was shocked when the loose crown rolled off into her hand. Then I was shocked when she dropped it onto the floor, and started crawling around trying to figure out where it had rolled off to. I didn't know if they had planned to repair the thing or make a new one, but now, after she pulled the fuzzy thing out from under the X-ray machine, I was pretty damn sure they'd better have a new one in the works.

    They indeed made a replacement temporary crown. A better one than the first one, I could tell immediately.

    And then I had an idea how to make this whole thing just a little more efficient. "By the way. As long as I'm here anyway, can you guys go ahead and redo the botched impression?"

    "No."

    "Um, please? I really don't have time to keep coming back here every time you guys screw something up."

    "How was your root canal?"

    "Excuse me?"

    "How was the root canal, Friday? Fairly painless?"

    Wait just a minute. Were they trying to emotionally blackmail me into admitting that because the root canal itself wasn't that bad, I had no right to complain about the circus which had transpired ever since then? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I think they were.

    I at least shamed them into moving the redo-the-impression visit up to Tuesday (meaning I would miss plans with some friends, but hopefully end this whole ordeal a few days sooner vs. if I didn't come back until Saturday). Sigh.

    Fast forward to 9am this morning. I walked into the lab to do the colour match. This is now dental-related visit #4, counting the original cleaning/checkup.

    "I'm sorry sir, do you have an appointment?"

    Blink. Blink. But wait, the dentist told me I didn't . . . oh. Damn. Yep, here we go again.

    The people at the lab were pretty good natured, and took me in anyway since the mixup really wasn't my fault, but I couldn't believe how this was going. Now I really started to feel like both I and my insurance company deserved some of our money back. Seriously.

    Anyway, here it is, Monday night, and I've got my fairly ugly but at least still intact replacement temporary crown, and presumably a correct colour match done sitting in a file somewhere. And tomorrow night, hopefully, fingers crossed, touch wood, no-jinx, I'll have an impression made that they can successfully make a permanent crown from.

    And it's only taken five slices of my life to get that done.

    And then at least one more appointment after that (not even made yet) to truly get it finished up. This permanent crown better . . . hell, I don't know . . . but it had better grant freaking wishes, or shoot lasers, or sparkle every time I say something clever, or, heck, at least carve vegetables into cool little Japanese shapes while I chew them — after as much trouble as all this has been, anyway.

    * * *

    To be fair, I can't say there's not a silver lining to all this. This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I noticed my pants seemed loose. I stepped on the scale.

    "Hey. I lost six pounds this weekend!"

    "Six pounds?!? I guess because you barely ate anything? Man, I'm jealous. I wish I could do that."

    "Sure you can. Let me look up my dentist's phone number...."]]>     Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800 Mattstories: now http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2010_12_06     For Your Safety http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2010-12-03
    Michael presses the 11 button. It lights up, and then about a half a second later it goes dark.

    I press the 11 button. It stays lit.

    "That was weird," he says. "It likes you better."

    "I think it's telling you that you shouldn't be at work today."

    "You think I . . . I should just turn around and go home?" he asks.

    "Oh definitely. For your own safety. Before something else happens."

    "For the safety of myself and those around me."]]>     Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800 Mattstories: now http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2010_12_03     Redneck Cred http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2010-11-08 profile, and follow the donation link there.

    At any rate, my wife said that if I was going to do this, I should go all the way, and grow out the biggest, most good ol' boy southern handlebar mustache I can muster.

    It's been growing for enough days now that, aside from the really annoying itching sensation, I don't really think about it too much. That's why I was surprised at . . um . . . special treatment in a little gas station in the middle of nowhere in Washington State yesterday.

    The customer in line in front of me was greeted with a cursory, "Good evening. That'll be $23.57. Thank you, sir."

    So I was a little startled when, as I stepped up to the counter: "HEY THERE, buddy? How're you doin tonaaaaght? Everthin' alright this evenin'?"

    The jovial banter continued as I paid for my coffee and chips, and left the store.

    "You don't think. . . ." my wife said.

    "What?"

    "The mustache? You think he thought you were one of his people? Heh, you have redneck cred!"

    "That's awesome! What should I do?"

    "I don't know. You got any favours you need from any rednecks, before you shave the mustache and the effect wears off?"]]>     Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800 Mattstories: now http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2010_11_08     The Definition of Ugly http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2010-10-11
    But then, a few hours later, we caught another train home. And were joined right away by a man and a woman, the woman explaining something to him at the time, roughly summarized below.

    "You don't understand. I hate ugly people. Ugly people are ugly. With their beady little eyes. Small eyes are ugly. Small squinty eyes are especially ugly. Short people are ugly. People who are underweight or overweight are ugly. Some people who are too tall are ugly, but mostly short people. And what's the point of being ugly? I mean, that's just ugly. I don't see how short people or overweight or underweight people can go out in public. If they go in public they should just cover themselves up like those Arabian women. There's no point in living if you're ugly. And that's not all. Dark hair and dark eyes are ugly. Light hair and light eyes that aren't natural are ugly. How many people do you think naturally have light hair and light eyes? You can't change it. If you make your hair lighter on purpose you're still ugly. So dark hair and dark eyes are ugly. And hair that's tangly. Why don't people just cut it off. Short hair is ugly, though. And hair that's too long is ugly. And those women who wear no makeup or earrings, they're ugly. And big noses are ugly. Big huge noses are ugly. When a nose is too big it's not a nose; it's a beak, and it's damn ugly."

    "Is that all?" asked her partner.

    "Yes, I think so."

    We rode in silence for about 10 minutes. Then we hear a conversation starting up behind us.

    "But I still tell you, that woman was UGLY. With her small squinty eyes, and small eyes are ugly. And short people are ugly. And overweight and underweight people are ugly, too. . . ."]]>     Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0800 Mattobserved http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2010_10_11     Welcome to effing Vancouver http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2010-02-21 Drunk Canadian Hockey Fan: Wooooo! Canada! Woooooooooooo! Hey man, you got some spirit? Where you from, anyway, man?
    Olympic Visitor: Korea.
    Drunk Canadian Hockey Fan: Korea? An yong haseyo, dude! Cool! Korea. Sweet. You here for the Olympics?
    Olympic Visitor: Yes.
    Drunk Canadian Hockey Fan: Cool, well welcome to the world of fucking Vancouver, man!
    Olympic Visitor: Okay. Sir? I have a question.
    Drunk Canadian Hockey Fan: Sure, man. What's up?
    Olympic Visitor: Why you want to put . . . F word before Vancouver?]]>     Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800 Mattobserved http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2010_02_21     Evolution of a New iPhone User http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2010-02-02 Your first message is from Monday, February One, at Twelve O. Three P. M. Hi Matt, it's me. I picked up the new phone at Purolator a little earlier, but I'm really frustrated. I don't know what to do. I couldn't figure out how to plug the little cable thing, or to add the SIM card, and when I called for help, they acted like they wanted to switch me back to my no-data plan from my old phone, and I thought that sounded wrong, but didn't know what we should do, so I just put the iPhone away, and I guess you can help me when you get home. Is that okay? I just couldn't get it to work.

    . . .

    At the sound of the tone, please leave a message, or, if you'd like to leave a callback number you can be reached at, press pound. [beep] Hey, it's me. Sorry I couldn't reach you. No worries about the phone. I'll help you out as soon as I'm off work. We can call the account management people together and get the phone activated. Sorry you didn't get to play with your new phone much on your day off today after all. . . .

    . . .

    Same day, approximately 4pm:
    She: . . . and did you know there's an app I can enter in whatever I eat to see how many calories I've consumed throughout the day? Oh, and this other one for staying on track on my goals? And I got it working with Google Calendar, so it's so cool, I can see all my calendar stuff now. Oh, and I've been learning Dutch. Here, listen. ["Zaterdag"] Did you hear that? That means Saturday.
    I: So I, uh, I guess you got it activated?
    She: I think. Does this work?
    I: [my cell phone rings] Yeah, I think. Is that your new number?
    She: Yeah. And I've been taking photos of everyone in the family and the cat, and assigning different ringtones to everybody, and. . . .
    I: Even the cat?
    She: Yeah, and oh, and there's a compass! Check it out, I'm facing . . . east!
    I: What about the cable problem or whatever? I guess you got that solved.
    She: The SIM card? I did what you always do, and Google searched something like "install SIM card in iPhone" and found a site that even had pictures how to do it with a paper clip. It was easy. Oh, did I tell you about Rastamonkey?!?]]>     Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800 MattStories: Now http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2010_02_02     Who is Who? http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2010-01-30 Kid 1: No, it's because they're British. British people have no creativity.
    Kid 2: What?
    Kid 1: Seriously, haven't you noticed?
    Kid 3: How can you say that? Everybody's creative.
    Kid 1: Well, I don't mean all of them, but as a general rule. As nations go, Britain is not the creative one. Italy and France, you know, they're creative. They have, uh, the renaissance, and art, and fashion, and. . . .
    Kid 2: I guess.
    Kid 1: Don't get me wrong — I'm not, like, anti-British. They're totally good at business, for example. Just not creative stuff.
    Kid 2: Well, what about TV? There's good British TV.
    Kid 1: Come on, Doctor Who?!?
    Kid 3: Wait. Doctor Who is real?!?!?]]>     Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800 Mattobserved http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2010_01_30     Fast . . . food http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2010-01-26 Teenage A&W Cashier: Welcome to A&W. What can I get for you?
    Matt: I have a little bit of an odd request, but another A&W didn't seem to have any issues with it. Can I have a Mozza Burger, but without a bun?
    Teenage A&W Cashier: . . .
    Matt: I'm allergic to wheat. I'd prefer not to have the bun crumbs in there to begin with, plus it saves you wasting a bun on someone who's not going to eat it anyway.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: So you just want, like, the meat and cheese and vegetables and sauces, but no bun. Like, on a plate or something?
    Matt: On a plate works great. Or even just in a wrapper. Really, other than the bun thing itself, I'm not picky.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: Um, okay. How would you eat that?
    Matt: With a fork or something. Really it's no problem. I've done it before.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: Okay. Wait. What would I charge for that?
    Matt: You can charge me the regular price for a Mozza Burger; that's fine.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: I don't know if I should do that, because, like, you're not getting all the required Mozza Burger components. That doesn't seem fair.
    Matt: Seriously. I don't care. Just keep it easy and charge me the regular price.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: Okay, if you say so. Let me just tell the cook. [steps around the corner briefly] Oh! [returns to register] Oh no.
    Matt: What's wrong?
    Teenage A&W Cashier: Where do we put the sauce?!?
    Matt: Excuse me?
    Teenage A&W Cashier: The sauce! We usually spread the sauce on the bun. If there's no bun, where do we put the sauce?!?
    Matt: Um, wherever you want to? Or leave it off if it's really that much of an issue for you. I suppose I'm not even all that attached to mustard, all things considered.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: I don't know. . . . [sigh] No. I don't think we can do it for you after all.
    Matt: Because of the sauce.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: I'm sorry.
    Matt: So, you're not going to sell me anything to eat simply because you don't know where to spread mustard and ketchup?
    Teenage A&W Cashier: [considering that, when putting it this way, it might not be a great customer experience] Hm, I guess you're right. [thinks for a long time] Oh! [claps hands] Would it be okay with you if we put the sauce on the lettuce?
    Matt: Okay with me? Uh, sure. Of course. Spread it on the lettuce. Spread it on the meat. Whatever.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: [with increasing enthusiasm] And we could put a piece of lettuce on both sides, instead of the bun! So you could, like, hold it by the lettuce!
    Matt: Sure.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: With the sauce on the inside sides of the two lettuces!
    Matt: Sure.
    Teenage A&W Cashier: Cool! Okay. Great! Sir?
    Matt: Uh huh?
    Teenage A&W Cashier: Do you want fries with that?
    ]]>     Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800 Mattobserved http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2010_01_26     Iceland http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2009-12-13 I: So, what do you feel like listening to tonight?
    She: Can you throw together a mix of, say, Icelandic music?
    I: Ahem. As a matter of fact [pleased that all the endless anal-retentive hours of organizing and tagging his mp3 collection may finally prove useful to his significant other], I can. There, how's that?

    Múm song plays....
    Amiina song plays....
    Bang Gang song plays....
    Björk song plays....

    She: I like this Björk song.
    I: Yeah, me too.

    Emiliana Torrini song plays....
    Sigur Rós song plays....

    She: How many bands from Iceland do you have?!?
    I: [looks up at iTunes] Nine.
    She: That's. . . .
    I: . . . Like half the population of the country. I know. Musical folks, those Icelanders. . . .]]>     Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800 Mattmedia,dialogues http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2009_12_13     Eye of the Tiger http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2009-10-25 here by clicking, "play" at the bottom of the screen that comes up, and then come back here. Got it?)

    She: Hey, isn't this the Supernatural song?
    I: Eye of the Tiger?
    She: Yeah.
    I: Um, well, if anything, I think it's the Rocky Two song.
    She: But it's that song Dean was singing that time.
    I: Yeah, it was. Uh, just because I'm wondering, you know that all the songs in Supernatural are classic rock songs, and were famous before the show, right?
    She: Uh . . . yeah! Of course I knew that.
    I: Okay, just checking.]]>     Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0800 Mattdialogues http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2009_10_25     Contemplating the Orb http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2009-10-24
    Either way, I still keep an open mind about it, but there are a few words which always set my paranormal scepticism on full power:

    "There's an orb in this photograph."

    Nevermind that a discoloured circle on a photograph can be caused by so many normal things that a paranormal explanation is not necessary, but if a ghost is going to make its presence known to people, disguising itself as lens flare seems to be a pretty lame way to do it.

    That was, until last night. I think. I'm still trying to sort this out, you see.

    My wife and I went on the Haunted Burnaby tour, put on by the Burnaby Village Museum.

    The tour was great — comprising just as much interesting normal Burnaby history as stories of the paranormal, but that's certainly okay with me. The tour included visits to:

  • The Anderson House

  • Altnadene, also known as The Mathers House

  • Bell's Dry Goods Store

  • The Johnson House

    • . . . and, most significantly,

  • Fairacres Mansion, otherwise known as the Burnaby Art Gallery, or The Ceperley House

    • It was in the Ceperley House, on the unrenovated (and usually closed to the public) third floor where things got . . . interesting.

    The house itself was built by Henry and Grace Ceperley in 1911. After Grace's death, it also served as a chapel and lodging for Benedictine monks, the headquarters of a bizarre religious cult, the house for a short-lived illegal SFU fraternity, and finally as the Burnaby Art Gallery.

    The last time the house's third floor was used for anything productive was in 1965, when it served as living quarters for the fraternity members, and the walls still bear the garish 1960s paint jobs and some creative artwork from those residents. There's no working lighting up there, and most of the doors and other fixtures are missing. Many of the rooms have various litter scattered about. It's a pretty rough place despite the house's beautiful exterior and renovated lower floors.

    The tour guide let the group roam around on the floor more or less unsupervised, with the one warning that a couple of rooms had unsafe floors, so not to enter any which had barriers across the doorways.

    It was interesting just looking around, until one of the tour participants in a nearby room to me shouted, "There's something here!" My curiosity got the better of me, and I ran into the room to find her and her boyfriend, each with a small digital camera, rapidly taking photos, one after another, of an empty room.

    But on the preview screens of the digital cameras, both of which I could see at the same time as I stood behind them, the room was not quite empty. On the image on both cameras, the far corner of the room included a perfectly round, uniformly silver coloured circle floating in midair.

    And, with each successive photo, the orb was moving, at about a foot per second, to our right, until about 30 seconds later, after the orb reached the wall along our right side, when it disappeared completely.

    I didn't know what to make of it. And I know what you're thinking, because if you'd told me this same story, I'd have a dozen different questions:

    1. You had flashlights, right? Wasn't it one of the flashlight beams on the wall? — The flashlight circles were visible as well, but were very different. The orb circle was much smaller in diameter than the flashlight circles on the wall, much more uniform (no bulb anomaly in the middle), and sort of . . . opaque. You couldn't really see the wall through it.

    2. Well maybe it was lens flare from a flashlight beam or flash reflection shining into the cameras? — I would think this was the most likely explanation, except it was two cameras, about three feet apart, and the orb was in the same location in both of them.

    3. What about a speck of dust or a problem with the lens? — Again two different cameras, identical anomaly. It was very weird, I tell you.

    4. An infrared light beam or something like that, which the cameras were picking up? — Maybe, but most infrared sources would have been drowned out by the flash, and again wouldn't have appeared opaque.

    The other oddity which I and others experienced directly was an invisible ball of superchilled air (probably 10C lower than the ambient air temperature) which seemed to be making its way up and down the hallway. The first time I felt it, I assumed it was a draft (a couple of the rooms with windows had noticeable chilly drafts), until a second time when a girl just down the hall commented on it just after it had passed me. I felt it probably three more times after that, and what was odd was that, unlike a draft, which tends to move like an uninterrupted stream of cool air, moving as part of a convection current, this was an isolated ball of chilled air, with plenty of warm air on all sides of it, and no sense of an current. Just a very still, cold, clammy moving spot.

    At any rate, I'm still convinced that 99% of other so-called "orbs" are simply lens flare or reflections, but I'm not sure what was happening here. I do know that if we take the tour again next year, I'm bringing my camera this time....]]>     Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0800 MattStories: Now,supernatural http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2009_10_24     Canary IQ Test http://www.onomatopoeia.org/OE/day//2009-10-08
    So, I registered on the site with my email address, and began answering questions.

    I completed the first page of 20 assorted math, logic, and reasoning problems, clicked SUBMIT, and was taken to a second page.

    "Huh," I thought. "I guess it's got fifty or sixty questions, then."

    I completed 60 questions.

    I completed 100 questions.

    I completed 200 questions and 250. (I told you I had nothing else going on that night.)

    Finally, after well over an hour and after 1020 questions, I decided that something was wrong with the quiz, and I abandoned it, cursing the amount of time I'd invested in the damn thing, and the absolute lack of payoff at the end.

    A little over ten minutes after that, I received an email.
    From: IQ Test
    Subject: You finally quit! (or something like that — it's a memory)
    So, you finally caught on! You lasted 1020 questions and 91 minutes before giving up. That gives you an IQ score of 61. Anyone smarter than you would have stopped answering questions long before you did.


    We'll pretend, for the sake of argument that I didn't spend the next 10 minutes vocally defending my perseverance to a computer which had no way of hearing my justifications. Because no one who isn't a total loser would do anything like that.

    . . . Which brings us to the present. . . .

    . . . And tonight, about 40 minutes into what, after an hour's reflection to make sure I wasn't rushing to judgement too quickly, I'm now certain is the very worst . . . movie . . . I've ever seen.

    No disrespect to the director of Canary. I mean, for a low budget art movie, it seemed like an honest attempt. And really, the premise of an alternate reality film about a near future where human organs are leased out and repossessed is a novel and intriguing idea. That's certainly what we thought when browsing the Vancouver International Film Festival program selecting films to see. How could you go wrong with a premise like that? It should be interesting at least.

    Sadly, interesting was exactly what this film was not. And I meant this as no exaggeration. The film consisted of a constantly rotating sequence of scenes based on the exact same variations:
    1. Conversations between various groups of people, potential organ repo victims, often in foreign languages but with no subtitles, but even when in English about utterly mundane topics, and continuing for minutes at a time. We're talking very long sequences of 5, 6, 7 minutes of not understanding a damn thing what two or three characters are saying to each other. Even in the case of a German couple, where I could make out about half the dialogue, they were talking about their Christmas dinner, and whether they should get a goose and a French or Italian wine, and a Christmas tree. Yawn.

    2. The even more vapid conversations of the office workers at Canary Industries. Starbucks coffee orders. Off-colour office jokes. What-are-you-doing-this-weekend smalltalk. Again, for 5, 6, 7 minutes straight. Yawn, yawn. If the point was the apathy of the corporate American world toward the behaviour of its organizations, point proved within seconds. No need to beat it into my skull.

    3. Conversations between a group of journalists half-heartedly trying to expose Canary industries. This would have been the most interesting of the plotlines a) if there were actually a plot, and b) if they didn't spend 75% of the screentime bickering about their own office politics rather than doing anything.

    4. Drawn-out, absolutely silent scenes of a mysterious, mute Canary repo agent stalking and/or mulling over unconscious repo victims. Again, for 5, 6, 7 minutes at a time.

    Lather, rinse, repeat.

    I really wanted to be able to say, "Maybe I just didn't get it?"

    But the thing is, I did get it.

    I get that the big bad corporation used even the slightest pretense to go harvesting organs which allegedly weren't being properly treated.

    I get that the staff members of the corporation were completely callous to their company's operations.

    I get that the general public lead small and insignificant lives, beautiful and yet mundane, never knowing if or when the organ repo chick will strike.

    I get that the North American consumer enjoys all kinds of perks at the expense of the non-English-speaking, non-white, or [gasp] even person next door sort of other human beings.

    I get all that, and yet the movie was still the most egregious affront to my patience I've ever experienced. In fact, I feel insulted that the filmmaker felt that one or two minutes of a concept wasn't enough, and that twenty or thirty minutes (total) of it would be so much more moving.

    During our screening of the film, about 20% of the audience got up and left.

    I stayed, thinking maybe, MAYBE, there'd be some kind of payoff at the end.

    Nope.

    From: Canary
    To: Matt
    Subject: End Credits
    You lasted 91 minutes. That gives you an IQ score of 61. Anyone smarter than you would have realized this movie was a hopeless waste of time long before you did.
    ]]>     Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0800 Mattstories: then,media http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mmussel/2009_10_08