Small things New Year's Eve

• Enough with the 3D photos already.
• Happy 88th birthday to Nichelle Nichols, who made television history in the 1960s with her portrayal of "Star Trek" character Lieutenant Nyota Uhura. In this breakthrough role, Nichols showed an African American woman in a position of power as the fourth in command of a starship.
• "It would take one [New York] subway ride for the Dalai Lama to turn into a lunatic raging person." ~Fran Lebowitz
• Socialism is when the fire department arrives. Capitalism is when the insurance company refuses to pay.
• Everything in a video game is powered by electricity.
• If you have something really bad to say to someone in an email and it's making you hesitant, don't worry. Just start it off with: "Hi [person's name], I hope you are being safe in this time of COVID...." They'll just delete it as spam and you're off the hook.
• Santa is Chinese I think. Ask yourself, where are all the toys made? Also, China's colour is.... RED! Santa's colour is red too. Just sayin'.
• Remember when the pandemic hit and it finally motivated the big corporations to do the right thing and start looking after their employees instead of just the bottom line? Me neither.

A: "I'm not getting the vaccine because I don't know what's really in it."

B: "Ever eaten a hotdog?"

C: "I'm not getting the vaccine because I don't know what's really in it."

D: "Ever smoked a cigarette?"

Perfect gift

 

Dancing robots are scary

I'm gonna kill you. But first, let me put on some music.....

After I saw this video of a bunch of Boston Dynamics robots dancing, I imagined a future sci-fi movie where the robot hero dances to its favourite songs while it shoots, kicks, chops and commits utter mayhem on its enemies.

Africa is much bigger

Sorry, Greenland is not as big as Africa.

Here's a great explanation of how world maps are created and why they're messed up.

Pringle Bells would have been my pick

 

Things I learned lately New Year's Eve

• Researchers discovered that petting a dog before a brief separation from the owner may have a positive effect, making the dog calmer during the separation itself.
• In Spain, it's customary to eat 12 grapes right at midnight on New Year's Eve, representing good luck for each of the coming 12 months.
• You'll notice a common feature in large buildings near the water in Hong Kong - giant holes in the centre of the building. It's a feng shui thing. They're called dragon gates and they allow dragons to fly from the mountains to the sea through them. This allows positive energy to flow through the building.
• Voyager I is zipping along at 61,000 km/h (17 km/s) and is currently 18,800,000,000 km from earth. The Parker Solar Probe would leave Voyager in the dust though, as it rounds the sun at 700,000 km/h (194 km/s).
• In China, a new Starbucks opens every 15 hours.
• Starbucks didn't do well in the Australian market due to rapid expansion. In 2008, they had as many as 87 outlets but closed a bunch, leaving only 26 by year end. There are 54 in 2020. On the other hand, a coffee chain that got its start in Chicago but is now based down under, Gloria Jean's, has more than 400 locations in Australia. They attribute their success to a more Aussie focussed menu.
• Musical notes have names thanks to a 6th century Roman philosopher named Anicius Boethius.
• The Charlie Brown Christmas Special, featuring the greatest jazz soundtrack in television history, was commissioned by Coca Cola in 1965.
• The geniuses at CBS wanted a laugh track on The Charlie Brown Christmas Special, but Charles Schulz would have none of that.
  
  
  
• The language the aliens speak together in Men in Black is ‘Huttese’, the language Jabba the Hutt speaks in the Star Wars films.
• In the movie Interstellar (2014), the black hole was so scientifically accurate it took about 100 hours to render each frame in the physics and VFX engine. Meaning every second you see took about 100 days to render the final copy.
• Did anyone notice in Deadpool 2 that RBG's headshot featured in the X-Force squad audition scene?
• In Maleficent (2014), the young Aurora was played by Angelina Jolie’s daughter Vivienne. The 5-year-old got the part because she was the only child who wasn’t terrified of Jolie in her Maleficent makeup. Several other younger children auditioned and wouldn’t go near her.

Hint: It's not the vaccine.....

 

One of these contains a microchip to log many aspects of your life

EV road trip

EV charging has come a long, long way in the last couple of years, especially on the Tesla Supercharging network, where the chargers have not only multiplied, but also been upgraded in many cases to much faster charging.

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to see what the amazing web site A Better Route Planner, which some folks argue is a much better trip planning tool for electric cars, planned for a drive from my home in Calgary to downtown Vancouver.

The planner does the best job when you tell it what car you're driving, so I went big and chose a Tesla Model Y dual motor AWD long range model. So what does that trip look like?

Well, it has me leaving home with 90% state of charge (SoC) and stopping first in Golden after 3 hours of driving and charging for 7 minutes to get my SoC from 27% to 50%. That costs $3.10

Then, after just over a 2.5 hour drive, we would stop to charge in Revelstoke for 16 minutes to get the SoC from 15% to 64% at a cost of $6.93. That's just enough to grab a Timmie's and respond to Mother Nature's call.

Next stop is Kamloops after 2.5 hours of driving, where we charge for 19 minutes to get the SoC from 11% to 68% at a cost of $8.26. By the way, the reason the planner doesn't have us charging up too much is because the fast chargers operate at their fastest rate between 10% and about 70% SoC. After 70%, the rate of charge tapers off due to the battery's needs. So we're really leveraging the sweet spot to take advantage of the fastest charging possible.

Last charging stop is at Hope after almost 2 hours, where we charge for 11 minutes to get the SoC from 11% to 47% ($4.88), which is enough to get us to downtown Vancouver with 10% SoC after the last 1.75 hour drive.

Total drive time is 12h 29m to go 982 km. Total energy cost is $23.17. I'm not joking. Total stop time for charging is 53 minutes. Not too bad. That trip would normally take me about 11 hours (but that's givin' 'er hell) and cost around $60 in gas.

So, as you can see, electric car trips are getting manageable.

The taster

This could be one of the greatest Burger King commercials ever made. 

Too bad it wasn't made by Burger King themselves.

They got the beat

The Go-Go's still have the beat, almost 40 years later.

A Christmas Carol (abridged)

 

Home schooling adventures

Kids: What's that awful sound?

Parent: That's the fire alarm.

Kids: What!?

Parent: Yeah. Fire code says we have to do a fire drill once a week.

Kids: Why?

Parent: To make sure we can all get out if there's a fire.

Kids: 

Parent: Go on. Get out there. We're being evaluated on speed.

Kids: When do we get to come back in? 

Parent: After I've cleared the house and made sure there's nobody else in here. 

Kids: 

Parent: [Pours a coffee and bites into a donut inside the house]

Kids: [From outside] We were the only people in the house!

Parent: Says you!

Kids:

Parent: You have to wait for the all clear.

Kids: [sulking] I wanna go back to real school!

Small things 24 Dec

• I'd like to see a trailer for 2021 before I decide whether or not to see it.
• Fuji; Memorex; TDK; AGFA; BASF; Recoton; Maxell. Realistic; Aurex; Ampex; Teac. Names that mean nothing to a 20 year old.
  
  
  
• I wonder how many kids are rebelling against Zoom school by mouthing words instead of speaking so as to make the teacher think there's something wrong with the unmute function.....
• Some people say having a dog prepares you for having a child. That's B.S. No dog ever wants to watch Frozen 47 days in a row.
• It's perfectly fine if you and your partner decide that you don't want any children. So long as it's before you have them.
• "The people that feel [my] music, the trick is, if you listen to that music and you see me, you're not getting anything out of it. If you listen to that music and you see yourself, it'll probably make you cry and you'll learn something about yourself. And now you're getting something out of it." ~Joni Mitchell
• Nerds candy. When you're secretly hungry for aquarium gravel and need to take the edge off.
• Child: "The news said it's more sanitary to sneeze into an elbow.

        Parent: "They meant your OWN elbow...."

Deck the pigs?

 Deck the Halls, but sung to the tune of War Pigs.

Metal Christmas?

Deck the pigs?

Oh Lord yeah!

Calvin & Hobbes Christmas

 

Things I learned lately 24 Dec

• Covid's resulting closure of movie theatres led to a massive surplus of corn.
• As part of winter solstice celebrations, Gaels and Celts burned logs decorated with holly, ivy, and pinecones to cleanse themselves of the past year and welcome the next one. They also believed the ashes would help protect against lightning strikes and evil spirits. The practice was scaled down over time, and eventually, it morphed into a more delicious tradition. Yule log cake! Parisian bakers really popularized the practice of creating yule log-shaped desserts during the 19th century, with various bakeries competing to see who could come up with the most elaborately decorated yule log.
  
  
  
• According to the Ugly Christmas Sweater Party Book, the ugly sweater party trend can be traced to a 2001 gathering in Vancouver. Yay Canada!
• Before Christianity was even conceived of, people used evergreen boughs to decorate their homes during the winter. The greenery reminded them that plants would return in abundance soon. As Christianity became more popular in Europe, and Germany in particular, the tradition was absorbed into it. Christians decorated evergreen trees with apples to represent the Garden of Eden, calling them "Paradise Trees" around the time of Adam and Eve's name day, December 24. Gradually, the tradition was subsumed into Christmas celebrations.
• You don't need antimicrobial soap. Soap is all you need because you're not after killing the micro-organisms, you're wanting to loosen them from your skin so they rinse off easy.
• It’s easy to imagine a T-Rex frolicking with a Stegosaurus. However, the Stegosaurus existed about 155-150 million years ago while the T-Rex existed about 68-66 million years ago. They would never have met.
• Dr. Phil lost his license to practise psychology in 2006. Therefore, all guests on his TV show must sign a contract stating they are only there to receive "advice" from an individual, not a psychologist.
• That 70s Show was originally supposed to be named Teenage Wasteland.
• Friends the TV show was originally supposed to be named Six of One.
• Married with Children the TV show was originally supposed to be named Not the Cosby Show.
• Happy Days the TV show was originally supposed to be named Cool.

Extreme social distancing

 

Live hits

It occurs to me that while there are a lot of things about today's music that makes it easy for folks my age to pine for the stuff we grew up to in the 1970s, there is definitely one aspect of that older music that is lost on today's music scene.

Live versions of songs that became hits as opposed to the original studio versions of those songs.

For example, Peter Frampton, while he did have a bit of a following before his massive hit live album, it was nothing compared to what was about to happen with Frampton Come Alive. This double live album shot through the stratosphere thanks to both its timing and the pure joy that is a Frampton concert. When you listen to the studio versions of hits like Show me the way, Baby I love your way and of course the audience favourite Do you feel like we do, there's just something vital missing from those versions.

The same goes for Cheap Trick, whose Live At Budokan album exploded with the twin hits Ain't that a shame and I want you to want me. Go listen to the studio versions. They are almost comical.

Other examples:

Kiss - Rock and roll all nite from 1975's "Alive!"

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free bird from 1976's "One More From The Road". I don't include this one necessarily because the live version was famous first, but this live performance became so famous, so endearing to concertgoers, that they yell out the title to ANY performing band to play on stage.

Fleetwood Mac - Landslide from 1997's The Dance. People knew of this song, although it was not the power hit that would become of half of Rumours, but this live version breathed more life into the song than the studio version could.

Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band - Turn The Page from 1976's ‘Live’ Bullet

Bob Marley - No Woman, No Cry from 1975's Live!

Jackson Browne - The Load-Out / Stay from 1977's Running on Empty. Not from a live album, but recorded live and placed on a studio album.

Deep Purple - Smoke on the water from 1972's Made in Japan. I mean, come on! P.S.: Spotify has the 2014 remastered version.

Small things 18 Dec

• Do you ever feel guilty using someone's driveway to turn around?
• I love how dogs can make one game into two games. For example, when you just want to play 'fetch the ball', they also want to play 'try to get the ball out of my mouth'.
• "Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see." ~Carl Jung
• You're not allowed to blame your parents for how you turned out, then criticize your kids' generation for being defective.
• Whoever is saying "things couldn't get much worse", please stop. Thank you.
• It's wrong to rob a bank, but it's okay if a bank robs you?
• Mom, why are you putting oregano in the chocolate brownies? Mom, why can't I have any brownies?
• Grammar. The difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit.
• The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed her were following it.

Easiest thing in the world

 

This is one of the best Covid related put downs ever. 

Then I read the last line. 

EPIC.

I'm not a cyclist

Anyone who has ever said anything to criticize a 'cyclist' probably needs to watch this video.

You know, like 'drivers'.

Top 3 Christmas songs

My top 3 favourite holiday songs are:

• Vince Guaraldi - Christmas time is here (instrumental)
• Twelve days of Christmas - Bob & Doug McKenzie
• Bing Crosby & David Bowie - Peace on Earth / Little drummer boy

What about you?

We're formally invited!

 

Things I learned lately 18 Dec

• Sandy Munro said that the leaders in the emerging EV market are and will be the ones who master vertical integration. In other words, the companies that make most of their own components. Sandy feels that the top 3 are Tesla, VW and Toyota. Everyone else is at huge risk of having too weak of a supply chain.
• Sandy Munro truly believes that the crossover point from ICE to EV is coming much sooner than 2030. He's convinced it'll be closer to 2028 or even 2025. He also states that any car company that isn't putting all their R&D into EV right now is doomed to obscurity in an alarmingly short period of time.
• Johnny Costa, the pianist who played live on Mr. Roger's Neighbourhood, never played the theme music the same way in each show. It was always a different iteration. It was played live. Every. Time.
  
  
  
• Four Covid-19 sniffer dogs have begun work at Helsinki airport in a state-funded pilot that Finnish researchers hope will provide a cheap, fast and effective alternative method of testing people for the virus. A dog is capable of detecting the presence of the coronavirus within 10 seconds with an accuracy close to 100%.
• Once upon a time, Christmas trees were illuminated by burning candles. On the tree!
• The next Star Wars movie is titled Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. Rogue Squadron is a known entity in Star Wars lore, referred to in comic books and video games. The story will supposedly take place after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is scheduled to premiere in 2023.
• Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC got most of its taxes from the wealthiest people. In fact, the wealthy boasted about how much tax they paid. In the US, tax evasion is an underappreciated problem. About 1 out of every 6 dollars owed in federal taxes is not paid. The amount of unpaid taxes every year is plausibly about 3/4 the size of the entire annual federal budget deficit.
• When McDonald's introduced the Chicken McNugget, it became so popular that it created a temporary chicken shortage.
• 1 in 3 GoFundMe campaigns are trying to solicit funds to pay off American medical bills.
• McDonald's McFlurry dessert was created by a Bathurst, New Brunswick franchise owner, Ron McLellan.

Say it like Shrek

 

Matter they do

 

A recent conversation at Mark's

Employee: "Can I help you find something?"

Me: "Probably not. I'm looking to see if by chance you still have any of those great snow moccasins. But I don't see any."

E: "No, we sold the last of them a few days ago."

Me: "Too bad, they were great winter shoes. I wanted to buy them again."

E: "Yeah, they were one of our best sellers last year......."

Me:

Play the whole album - Peter Gabriel - So

If you have a Spotify or any other music streaming service that lets you listen to entire albums in one go, I've got some homework for you.

I often wonder if Peter Gabriel knew he was going to have a huge solo career after he left Genesis. Even if he did, I then wonder if he realized what an epic album he created in the MTV-era masterpiece - 1986's 'So'.

Red Rain opens the album. This song, although it opens with thundering drums and powerful instruments, does not paint an accurate picture of what kind of adventure you've embarked upon, although their are thematic elements hinted at in the melody. If the opening cymbals sound familiar, it's because you're hearing the Police's Stewart Copeland on drums. Peter's voice has a great gravely edge to it. The song meanders along with an 80s beat and then finally closes framed just by Peter's voice. You're thinking you might be settling in for some quiet music for now, but it's a ruse.

The song that raised the bar at MTV and Much Music is next and it's a Sledgehammer. The ruse continues with the quiet, subtle opening flute. Then the horn section and that relentless thump announces that we're about to change music history. The lyrics are fromage, but that tune is catchier than Covid. The video for the song was sublime too. Well, that was a good album, eh? HA! We've barely gotten started.

Peter teams up with a few legends on this album and our first partnership is with the divine Kate Bush. A heartfelt ballad about hardship has Peter telling the story while Kate offers comfort in response. The song wanders into a gospel way both musically and even Peter's voice goes full-on gospel and it's a beautiful thing.

If you know Daniel Lanois' style after hearing what he did to U2's Joshua Tree, you can hear his influence here as well in the next two tracks, That voice again and Mercy street.

Then it's time for more MTV fun in Big Time. I love everything about this song. The wordplay and tongue in cheek innuendos are hilarious....

This is the picture features another legend, this time from the electronica genre, Laurie Anderson. The song was already featured on Laurie's album Mister Heartbreak, which also had Peter singing. But the new version is funked up a notched by none other than Nile Rodgers. The song was added to this epic album 48 hours before the whole package was submitted to the studio for final dubbing and mastering.

In your eyes features Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour and is considered by many to be one of the best modern love songs ever written. It also hints at the African influences Peter would incorporate into his later works.

Things I learned lately 11 Dec

• According to Google Maps it would take 186 hours to drive from Oslo Norway to Cape Town South Africa, a total of 14,263 km.
• There was a plan in the US, back in the 20th century, to have 2,000 nuclear reactors up and running by the year 2000.
• December 3rd, 2020 is the beginning of a new era in Hollywood. Warner Bros announced major, game-changing news. All of their big releases in 2021 will be available on HBO Max and in movie theaters on the same day. Everything. Only in the US though because HBO Max is currently only available in the US. This essentially means the era of "theatrical windows" is over.
• Algorithms have been designed that can diagnose precursor symptoms of Parkinson's based on your voice and your walking gait.
• During 1997 and 1998, Drew Carey served as a spokesperson for the A&W burger chain, appearing in TV ads; he was dismissed (with legal action ensuing) after a November 1998 episode of The Drew Carey Show featured Carey eating at a McDonald's location in China.
• Millennial dads spend 3 times more time with their kids than their fathers spent with them. In 1982, 43% of fathers admitted they'd never changed a diaper. Today, that number is down to about 3%.
• The CEO of Piala, a marketing firm in Tokyo, made a new policy in 2017 that awards non-smokers an extra 6 vacation days per year because they don't take regular smoke breaks.
• Thailand has salted egg flavoured Lays chips.
• In New Zealand, Rice Krispies are called Rice Bubbles.
• They have to label American Budweiser beer "Bud" in the EU because there already exists a beer named Budweiser. In fact, Busch stole the name to use on his US beer.
  
  
  
• Not only is the name of Kraft Dinner different in the US (Kraft Macaroni and Cheese), the Canadian variety has a fork in the picture on the box, while the US box has a spoon.
• Sour patch kids candy is called Very bad kids in France.

Here's to 2021

 

Small things 11 Dec

• Considering how much people have just had enough with 2020, I'm waiting to spot someone who just threw a bunch of lights on the ground in front of their house and called it a day.
  
  
  
• Imagine if your dog really did eat your homework. Nobody would believe you.
• If two pregnant women fight, is it like the babies having a mech battle?
• If something costs $1500 and then goes on sale for $1000 and then you decide to buy it, you didn't save $500. You spent $1000.
• If you suddenly start saving lots of money does the bank inform you that it has detected unusual banking activity?
• The government assigned you a number. They make you pay taxes. You have to register your property, guns, children. They know practically everything about you. But they're controlling you by telling you to wear a mask so you don't accidentally spit on each other?
• How come when most other politicians win, their supporters don't wear the politician's name on hats for 4 years?
• When you're watching YouTube and an ad for Google's Nest Audio comes on and the woman's voice says, "Hey Google, play some music!" And you're like, "Not again..." because your Google Home starts playing music.
• When you're both typing a text as indicated by the 3 dots, so you erase the message to let them 'speak' first, but they do the same thing....
• Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. It's the winter that killed him.

All-American beer slam

 

No thanks, I'll take a pass

 

The future of German (and eventually American) auto

Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster, makes a lot of great documentaries. 

This one is especially interesting in its story of the direction the car industry is going and how it may spell doom for manufacturers who don't get with the times very soon.

Most auto manufacturers seem to have played a wait and see game regarding electric, allowing Tesla, and then companies in India and China to get a head start.

"Get in loser. We're governing."

 

The bishop

Now this my friends, is music, and it sounds just as good live as it does on record.

Elvin Bishop, featuring Mickey Thomas on lead vocals and Reni Slais on backing vocals performing Fooled around and fell in love on the Midnight Special TV show.

The video is amazing.

In case you're wondering where else you recognize that voice from, it's Jefferson Starship.

Small things 4 Dec

• To anyone not getting the vaccine because they don't know what's in it, I hope you never ate a hot dog.......
• Every building should eventually generate its own power.
• Where there's a will, there's a notary.
• In 20 years the world will be run by people homeschooled by day drinkers.
• Should we really trust trees? They seem kinda shady.....
• Remember when you were young and you thought the cops could legally commit crimes, but then you grew up and realized they couldn't? But then you got older and realized yes they could?
• Less egos, more amigos.
• If we can build oil pipelines THROUGH indigenous land, why can't we build water pipelines TO indigenous land? (Thanks Isabel)
  
  
  
• Why am I just now hearing about Totes McGoats? (Niagara Falls recycling mascot - look it up)
• If democrats could rig elections, Americans would have single-payer health care and tuition-free schools. Also, they wouldn't have let Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham win again.
• Red Bull gives you wings. And by wings I mean diabetes.
• The person who wrote "The lion sleeps tonight" doesn't know much about lions...
• America, don't forget that GOP senators also knew how bad the coronavirus was while publicly downplaying it in February. Some of them sold off all their stocks after the first briefing on covid and then kept telling their constituents the virus was no big deal.

This is what happens when families are locked inside for months

 

Things I learned lately 4 Dec

• The top 2 longest runways in Canada are at the Calgary International Airport (YYC). If it still existed, the 3rd longest would have been the runway at CFB Namao north of Edmonton, which is now an Army base.
• For now, the largest battery powered electric bus fleet in North America is Canadian. Toronto's transit system is now running 59 electric buses from three suppliers. It takes about three hours to charge a battery that has been fully depleted. To maximize use of the bus, it's typically put on a long route in the morning, covering 200 to 250 kilometres. Then it's partially charged and put on a shorter run in the late afternoon. [Update: For comparison, the city of Shenzhen has 18,000 electric buses.]
• More footage from Planes, Trains and Automobiles was cut from the movie than actually ended up in the theatrical release. Some of the cut footage made it into the trailer.
• Clothes sold at factory outlets are often made just for outlet stores and are of a lower quality than what you'd find in the non-outlet stores.
• Apparently music artists can see the names of the playlists we're adding their songs to on Spotify. For the record, some of my playlist names: Sheer rock wall; Soul terrain; Little boxes; Canadian maple; Eclectic chair; Atmospheric haze; Electric storm; Jazz jam.
• In the new Kraft Dinner TV ad, one of the people eating it is former Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page [pictured]. Yes, he's eating it with Dijon ketchup.
  
  
  
• In Alberta, A&W restaurants are common even in smaller cities that don't have any other national burger chain.
• Cafe X is a coffee kiosk that uses a robotic arm to make your latte. There are 2 of them in SFO and SJC (closed for now due to Covid).
• The last drive-in style A&W restaurant closed in 2000, in Langley, British Columbia.
• Computer AI has surpassed human accuracy when it comes to image recognition.
• China is leading the world in so many technological advances in ways you have probably never heard about. This is partly because many Western countries are becoming embarrassed at how much further ahead China is on many fronts. It is also because Chinese youth working culture follow the 9-9-6 work/life model. Work 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week.