Drinky drinky!

And more news from the New York Times...

It looks like research has not shown that the pesky (for Americans or 20 year old Canadians visiting the States) drinking age of 21 is actually decreasing the number of drunk driving accidents. While it's true that I found 19 years old to be an annoying drinking age, mostly because I couldn't get into a lot of concerts I wanted to see that were in alcohol-laden venues, and it's true that I still do think that at the age of 18 you should be able to order a beer with your lunch, it is also true that young people are stupid. This makes them much less likely to use alcohol-purchasing power to order a beer with lunch and much more likely to get ridiculously drunk and do stupid things, like drive their cars.

So I cringe to say that... I agree with the idea of slightly older drinking ages (although 21 might be a little extra-old? And kind of arbitrary if you ask me.) But only because we live in a society that has a very disfunctional relationship with alcohol in the first place.

Well that was quick.

Ooooh la la! Already I have found some excellent sustainability-improving, waste-reducing news bits care of the BBC:

A Zero Waste town in Japan!

A new way to use solar energy, by coating windows in a special dye. Can you imagine if our dear City of Glass implemented this? (Consequently, like a good little annoying citizen, I emailed this article to the city's sustainability division.)

Two whole days with no posts! Oh, dear readers (all 1 or 2 of you), I am truly truly sorry. I have been exhuasted (thus not caring about anything that goes on around me enough to rant about) and/or out of the office. Now I am back and possibly getting a wee bit ill. Alas! I will try to spur my energies into a ball of flaming annoyance at something to motivate a post. Or at the very least find something interesting online to comment on.

Turns out it's not too difficult to change who you are.

More psych-research news! Did you know that thinking about your parents will change the way you view yourself? I think everyone knows that everyone has at least a little bit of a double-life when it comes to their parents, from the movies you actually like to watch, to how much drinking you actually do, to the sex you're actually having (or the gender you're having it with), to the fact that you actually paid your way through law school stripping, not waiting tables.

Looks like all that lying (or "protecting" or "hiding" or whatever) is taking its toll on how we view ourselves: when asked to picture their parents and then fill out personality profiles, subjects saw themselves as less wild, adventurous, sensual (etc.), and more docile and submissive, like good little children. Well, I guess there's no harm in that.

Unless you have low self-esteem. Then thinking about anyone, from your partner to your friend makes you feel worse about yourself. Sucky.

Headlines

Three cheers to the Church of England for catching on that women can be bishops without everyone going to hell in the process! (And three boos to the 1,300 clergy members who have threatened to quit if women are allowed in.)

Imagine living in a world where tug-of-war was an Olympic sport. We're all winners!

Don't they teach logic in accounting school?

ARGH!

Work?

This morning I was asked to enter the bank transaction info for one of our clients into a spreadsheet. It's one month's worth, so about 3 pages of transactions, which if I was to work at it straight without sanity breaks would take about 15-20 minutes. Then my boss, relieved that I had something to do, told me I was just told to take my time with it. Then it was pointed out that, well, it does need to be done by the end of the week. So does this mean that I actually should be stretching 20 minutes of work across several days? Is that possible? Even for a pro time-waster like myself?

I'm taking this as a challenge against the Lord of Accounting. So far I've managed to make it last about an hour. Let's see where this goes!

Privacy? Schmivacy.

Watch out! A US judge ordered Google to give up viewer information- the usernames and IP addresses for people who watched every single video ever posted on YouTube since it began. Looks like this might break a privacy law put in place a loooong time ago that makes peoples video rental habits private (after some senator's porno-renting habits were published in a paper).

I skimmed to Canadian Privacy Act to find out what we'd have to say about all this, and while I got bored before I got to anything relevant, I did find that there is an interested clause in the "knowledge and consent" section. Basically, you need someone's knowledge and consent to access their personal information unless you're investigating their crime and they'll destroy it before you get there or other such legal/emergency situations. OR you can access personal information without knowlege or consent if you're using it for journalistic, artistic, or literary purposes. I may be misunderstanding this, but it sounds to me like in Canada it's illegal to access someone's personal information without their consent, unless you're going to publish it in a paper or use it in art (that will, theoretically, be viewed publicly). Awesome.

Spread the Good News

Today I received the best news yet since working here. Well, potentially aside from learning on April 30 that the office would be closed for the next two days to recouperate from tax season. This news has much longer-lasting effects though: we've moved into summer hours! That means I get to go home at 4:30pm every day. Oh happiness abounds!

Maybe I'll stop being so careful about catching the bus that gets me here right at 8:30am from now on too...

Oh man, the potheads of the world are going to love this. Our skin makes cannaboids, similar to THC. And it's got protective/healing properties (for our skin, not other ailments).

Maybe I'm just going through peri-menopause...

I just read a Craigslist posting that made me cry because it was so sweet. I'm becoming my Mom (which is actually kind of awesome if you think about it, because my Mom rocks. But she does cry easily, which could be detrimental to the cold-hearted cynicism I've been working so hard at lately), pretty soon I'll be crying at that old Folger's Christma ad where Peter comes home and surprises his family for the holidays... (If my sister happens to read this, she'll find this reference humorous.)

It was really sweet though. See for yourself.

I see your true colours shining through...

Aw man! The True Colours Tour was today! Not that I really would have been able to go anyways, but think about it: Cyndi Lauper and The B-52's (as well as a bunch of other people like Rosie O'Donnell... yeah, I don't know either) in ONE DAY.

Maybe it's good that I missed it, I probably would have been so overcome with wonder that I would have started to glow an etherial yellow light. It would be cool, for sure, but then I wouldn't be able to sleep because I would close my eyes but my eyelids would be glowing and thus incapable of blocking out the light and then I would have gone all wild-eyed and crazy-like with branches, vines, and cats growing out of my hair. Not pretty.

....Although if yellow was my true colour, and it was shining through, would that be why you love me? Could I become a shocking yet beautiful personalization of one of Cyndi's best songs?

They don't call it a "bumper sticker" for nothin'

Research has shown* that people with bumper stickers on their car are more likely to get road rage and drive aggressively than people who don't. It doesn't even matter what kind of stickers they have, so the dude with the "my other ride is a skateboard" sticker is just as likely to ram you as the old lady with the "Jesus loves you" bumper sticker.

*I love those three words: "research has shown". They have authority and let you get away with making the wackiest observations at the same time!