Friday, March 23, 2007

How Real Men Fight!



I've been researching different fighting techniques. I had my heart set on learning sambo, but there's only one school in Toronto and it's in the west end. I might try kickboxing at Toronto Kickboxing Muay Thai Academy, as it's a really strenuous sport, and should help me rediscover what it's like to vomit. I failed to vomit during this week's workouts and I'm disappointed, nay, crestfallen about that. Right now I'm considering demanding a refund. At this very second...

Friday, March 16, 2007

Brick Tamland: I read somewhere their periods attract bears. Bears can smell the menstruation.

Brian Fantana: Well, that's just great. You hear that, Ed? Bears. Now you're putting the whole station in jeopardy.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

The Golden Mean

The researchers at faceresearch.org have arrived at the conclusion that average is beautiful. The face at left was created by averaging the features of 15 attractive female faces (as judged by the participants in a research study), and it was judged more attractive than any of the 15.

All well and good, but what I really want to know is if anybody can create an uglier average than my creation below? As you'll discover, creating a pretty face is easy, but achieving ugliness is quite challenging. There's a lesson to be learned here. Think about it.




ADDED:




As it actually turns out, although averaged composites are generally more attractive than the individuals they are comprised from, averageness and attractiveness are not equivalent. Perret et al performed an experiment where a composite was created from photos of 60 women (the first image), and a second composite was assembled from a subset of the 15 women that were judged the most attractive within those 60 (the second image). Participants in the study consistently ranked the second image more attractive than the first. Taking the exercise a step further, Perrett et al exaggerated the differences between the attractive composite and the normal composite to create a third image, which participants ranked most attractive of all (termed hyper-attractive). However, as the hyper-attractive image is the least average of the faces, it follows that averageness and attractiveness are not equivalent.

Faceresearch.org contains a number of facinating articles that are well worth reading (e.g. how feminine features can enhance the attractiveness of the male face, how gaze direction affects attractiveness, etc). You can log in with a guest account by clicking on Register, continuing through the consent screen, and selecting log in as guest.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Every office has a guy like this, unfortunately


There is a tub of Gummybears on Oscar's ledge. Dwight walks into the scene, pulls the lid off of the container, and places several Gummybears in his mouth. While chewing the Gummybears, Dwight notices a sign taped to the ledge.

Cut to close-up shot of the sign. It reads: Support me in the CN Tower Climb for WWF Canada.

Dwight: QUESTION. Will you provide a receipt for donations?
Oscar: Tax deductible receipts are provided for donations of $20 or greater.
Dwight: QUESTION. What is the WWF?
Oscar: World Wrestling Federation. Your donations will help feed malnourished wrestlers like Trish Stratus and The Undertaker...
Oscar: It's the World Wildlife Fund.
Dwight: The sign says WWF Canada.
Oscar: ...
Dwight: QUESTION. What is the Canada portion?
Oscar: Well, the World Wildlife Fund is a global organization, and WWF Canada is the Canadian branch. It deals with regional concerns.
Dwight: UNSATISFACTORY. If you can give me more information I might be convinced to donate.
Oscar: ...

Dwight crams more Gummybears into his mouth and walks off.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Feed a Falcon!


On April 28th, I will be regurgitate. But before doing so, I will be participating in a CN Tower climb in support of the World Wildlife Fund. My regurgitation and your donations will go towards feeding fledgling falcons. If you'd like to pledge your support, please visit my fundraising webpage.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

I heart long johns

I love wearing long johns when it's really cold. I love standing on exposed train platforms when everybody else is miserable and I'm not. It's like, not only have I triumphed over Mother Nature, I've triumphed over my fellow human beings. Long johned humans are the next stage of evolution.

In The Still of the Night



That last post sucked. Oh well. Rather than continue it, I'll simply relate the anecdote I was building towards.

One night, after getting home from a weekend of hanging out with some friends, I noticed a black BMW parked in front of my house, engine idling and headlights on. A light dusting of snow was on my driveway, so I did some shovelling and, without being too obtrusive, I gave several sidelong glances toward the BMW in an attempt to figure out who was parked in front of my house and why they were there. It was dark, so I couldn't resolve the details, but a rhythmic motion was definitely present in the front seat and I quickly arrived at a theory as to the BMW's occupants' purpose. After ten minutes of shovelling, and while loudly chipping away at some ice on my driveway, the BMW kicked into drive and sped into the night. I figured that was it; a couple of strangers in a BMW, on what had seemed to be an abandoned street, had given themselves to a moment of passion but had come to the sudden realization that they were no longer alone.

A couple of nights later, I arrived home from work around the same time (8-ish) and once again spotted the BMW parked out front of my house, engine idling, headlights on. Whatever. People making out, I'm tired, I'm gonna go watch season two of The Office.

Over the next week, the car reappeared intermittently and gradually I found myself getting more and more annoyed. Who are these people? How dare they park in my territory! I must be rid of them! But how?!

Various Ideas:
1) The city has a new by-law against idling. Yes, I'll call the cops and tell them about the idlers in front of my house! Bah! That's something an 80 year old man would do and it's a waste of tax payers money.
2) Perhaps I can dump a large pile of snow in their parking spot? Ingenious! Except it'll get cleared away tomorrow.
3) I'll get a laser pointer and be a nuisance. Paydirt! I'll shine it on them and they'll feel self-conscious. But what if one of them gets a damaged retina? I'd never forgive myself.

I mentioned my problem to a few of my co-workers, and they offered the following suggestions:
1) Throw snow on the car's windshield;
2) Dump a bucket of chum on the car.

Number two sounded good, but I don't have the necessary discipline to go out and buy fish remnants, let alone ferment them.

Several days went by and the car failed to reappear. Two, three, then four days had elapsed and I started to feel comfortable that the problem was resolved. But on the fifth day, as I rounded the bend and approached my house on foot, I noticed my old friend, the BMW, parked in front of my house again. Snow was on the ground and I angrily decided to clear it. The scraping of my shovel on pavement and the BMW's idling engine were the only sounds in the night. Frequently, I stopped in the middle of my shovelling to issue a withering gaze at the car, willing it to move, but my Jedi mindtricks proved useless. "How terribly awkward this situation is," I thought to myself.

Then it hit me. What do I do better than anything else? I transform normal situations into awkward ones. So what would happen if I took an awkward situation and applied my "gift" to it? Right then and there I resolved to find out. Shovel in hand, I walked towards the BMW with a sense of purpose. As I got closer, I noticed its occupants were in the backseat, clearly engrossed in one other. Patiently and awkwardly, I stood next to the rear passenger window and directed my gaze down the street. 30 seconds elapsed and out of my peripheral vision I noticed that the movement in the car had ceased. For whatever reason, I had become more interesting to them than they were to each other. Turning towards them, I smiled and waved. With a look of confusion, the young man waved back; his girlfriend did not. For ten full seconds we stared at each other through the car window. Finally, the young man lowered the window and I spoke first:

"I've, uh, noticed that you've been parked here several nights."
"Yeah. Sorry. It won't happen again. Is that okay for you?"
"Yes. Thank you."

I walked back inside, my shovelling completed.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

My Secret

One time, right before he perished, my sixth uncle told me, "With great power, comes great responsibility." It took me a long time to understand the meaning of those words, that my uncle wasn't simply pulling my leg, and I finally "got it" in an epiphany this past Wednesday night.

Not too many people know this, but when I was five years old, the family doctor diagnosed me with a rare form of autism. Recognizing that my days were numbered, my mom placed me in a reed basket and set me afloat on the shore of Lake Ontario, trusting that the wind and the currents would carry me off to a fabled fisherman and his wife who could cure my autism. However, due to being an obese five year old, the basket was crushed under my weight and the plan had to be scrapped.

All my life I've struggled under the secret burden of my autism. Every day I have to deal with ruined conversations, awkward pauses, and sudden slappings from irate women. Autism has left its toll on my ravaged body. On Wednesday, everything changed.