iPosture

Whatever device Apple is secretly rushing to market next year — the iSlate, iTablet, iPlank, or my preference, the iJayKay — it won’t be anything I need. Heck, no one actually needs any of the gadgets that the high-tech companies are shilling these days, but we sure want them. Lustrous, kaleidoscopic, cacophonous, expensive — who could resist?

However, in the ongoing matter of Want v. Need, the two parties will stipulate the following: what we don’t want, and what we certainly don’t need, are any more vapid mouth-breathers clogging our sidewalks and stairways while thumbing obliviously on their hand-held “smart” devices.

The troglodytes aren’t completely to blame. To be useful, these devices have to be primed with subscription plans and add-ons. To justify the resulting cost, the devices have to be used, routinely to the point that additional plans and add-ons (there’s an app for that) are inescapable.

Somehow, Bell Mobility’s marketing brochures fail to mention this consequence. It’s as if the term “exorbitant death spiral” never occurred to them.

I’m not immune to the siren call of these pandorean gadgets. I’m simply waiting for a model that is useful without my having to, uh, use it: one that buzzes me awake after I’ve nodded off during a meeting; one that points out the good sandwich places nearby when my stomach grumbles; one that highlights my scarf and toque when the temperature has dropped; one that alerts the authorities after I’ve fallen into a crevasse on a lonely trail; and one that electronically jams the signal of anyone in my vicinity attempting to text, tweet, poke, or telephone.

In other words, a device to make me feel connected, informed, secure, and, yes, more than a little smug.

You won’t find “fifi-i-nini” in any dictionary, not even one for crossword puzzle aficionados. Suffice to say, it means “finished” in some French Canadian vernaculars. Also, it’s a terribly satisfying way to announce the completion of a lengthy challenge:

Hey! No peeking.

Carole and I slaved away into the wee hours Saturday night, but it wasn’t until this afternoon that we pencilled-in Calder Trophy-winner “rookie” for the final clue.

The solution will be published in The Globe and Mail on January 2nd.

Christmas morning: brew coffee, open presents, call umpteen relatives down south.

Apparently others keep the same schedule as “all of our circuits are busy” was all we heard from the telephone yesterday morning.

So, we cranked up Skype on the computer (we have a $30/year Skype Out plan which lets us call any US or Canada phone number) and subsequently paid NorthwesTel a grand total of $0 for about two hours’ worth of holiday chatter. The Ottawa call suffered from considerable delay and echo, but the other calls were as clear as a regular phone.

From this, I can make two observations:

1. We need a computer that’s as easy to turn on as a telephone. (Or Skype To Go for Canada.)
2. All we want from the telcos is for them to ship our bits. If they won’t drop their ridiculous and complex plans, we’ll just move to ones-and-zeros traffic until they’ve no choice.

For all those planning to ask me to fix their computers this holiday season, please read this wonderful parable.

And if you really do want your computer to run fast:

• Stop using Internet Explorer.
• Stop downloading crap.
• Keep the kids away from your computer.
• Buy as much RAM as you can cram into the thing.
• Keep a selection of nut-free cookies on hand for when I turn up to work on your computer anyway.

I’ve spent the past hour virtually touring Prague. Much more interesting and seamless than Google Street View: www.360cities.net/prague-18-gigapixels

See if you can spot:

• smoking dude with lemon drink and little white dog (hint: circle to the east),
• smiling boy hanging from bars surrounding the ball court (due west),
• garden oasis above the abandoned and graffiti-splattered tour operator (just past the hanging boy), or
• sweethearts gamboling through the park (forested park to the north).

Sorry, no prizes for finding any of that, but there is some sort of treasure hunt going on within the photograph.

I love the central courtyard design of housing blocks in Old Europe. Must be noisy though. I wonder if they outlaw elevators to limit the building heights. Shame about the satellite dishes everywhere.

While I am not a credentialled electrician, I have been playing with electricity since I was a young lad, and have installed breakers, wired stoves, and even mastered the four-way switch. I have also electrocuted myself on at least a dozen occasions — one time waking up across the room from the clothes dryer.

Just yesterday, I rewired a couple of sockets in the living room after a 70s-era loose connection took out half of the circuit.

Therefore, it is with no little authority that I proclaim the following hard-earned lessons.

• An electrician’s job is one part welding (whoops, forgot to open the breaker) and two parts nicking fingers on sharp metal edges.
• Don’t twist the wires together before screwing on the wire nut.
• Plastic electrical boxes with friction Romex stops are crap.
• Electrical tape conceals all sins and binds all wounds.
• Blacken the neutral wire leading back to the switch so that the next electrician will know that it’s “hot.”
• Lamp cord has ridges on the insulation marking the neutral conductor.
• Think twice before licking those terminals.
• Leave no less than 6″ of Romex sticking out of each junction box.
• Always use screw terminals instead of friction-fit wire clamps.
• It takes an average of four different screwdrivers to install a simple outlet.

To usher in the Christmas season, I took a swig of egg nog last night, only to notice that the expiry date printed on the carton was “10-01-09.” Assuming this was Canadian nog, that means it expired on the 10th of January, 2009, and I should probably head on down to the hospital for the stomach suck special right frickin’ now. But if it was of American provenance, then it went bad on or about October 1st, 2009, and I should merely plan to spend my day within range of the commode. However, if this was old-country nog from Europe, then I can safely continue nogging it up until the 9th of January in the new year. (Unless the 10 actually refers to 1910 and I have in my possession a very rare and valuable nog — and am also dead before arrival.)

This is a very bad decade for date formats, and the next won’t be much better. How much cumulative brainpower will be wasted attempting to parse inscrutable noggy dates? I’m nearly to the point of patronizing only those establishments that issue receipts using the “17-DEC-09,” or “2009-12-17,” or even “Thursday, December 17, 2009″ formats. Few do.

But if I can just make it to January 13th, 2032, the ambiguity of dates will finally cease, if only for a few weeks. For, on that date, and no earlier, all formats will be clear:

• 13-01-32 (Canadian)
• 01-13-32 (American)
• 32-01-13 (ISO European)
• 13-32-01 (Mystic Order of Nog)

Assuming Arabic numerals, the twelve Gregorian months, and a Common Era that commences approximately with the birth of an influential east Mediterranean prophet, then there can be no confusion: the year must be 32, or 2032, and once that is chosen, the day of the month must be the 13th, leaving only the month, 1, or January. Ta da!

I should be just shy of retirement on that glorious day — assuming that Extra Foods does import its nog from overseas — and still competent enough to enjoy the rush of unequivocalness.

Update

Okay, well I suppose the earlier January 31st, 2031, is also unambiguous, since you wouldn’t need to know which 31 was the year and which was the day of the month.

(If I’m ever to become a better writer, I’m going to have to abandon this fascination with alliteration. Oops.)

Thursday’s addendum to our ongoing saga of multiple power outages fried my stereo receiver: a wayward bird was able to take down practically the entire city’s electrical supply. At first, the pre-blackout spike seemed to reprogram the AM tuner so that it couldn’t pick up the standard frequencies: instead of tuning to 560, 570, and 580 kHz, it insisted on stopping on 556, 573, and 584 kHz. That made CBC Radio One Whitehorse a little more fuzzy than usual. After cycling the power, the radio recalled its traditional decimal tuning points, but the signal is now so distorted that it’s unlistenable. The CD player’s audio output is still fine though, so the damage seems to have been restricted to the radio component.

A similar outage from last year — caused by an inquisitive squirrel as I recall — incapacitated one of my surge protectors.

The icy 2006 blackout burned out another protector and also boat-anchored a computer.

Thankfully, my many surge protectors are often willing to sacrifice themselves for Yukon Electrical/Energy‘s habitual failings, except, apparently, when the protectors determine that they’re actually more expensive than the devices they “protect.” I guess that’s a good thing.

Yet at some point, one of these spikes is going to blow something truly expensive, perhaps on the premises of a local business: Boston Pizza suffered a host of outage-caused damages earlier this year. I’m sure that there’s some six-point type somewhere that indemnifies the utilities from my piddling damages, but a big enough circuit blast might inspire litigation from a larger upset customer. It’s not as though these two utilities can claim years of steady and uninterrupted supply and distribution in their defence.