Gamer Grouch

I will admit to being an almost addicted gamer. Not one of the youthful, quirky attired, bug-eyed machine shooters and race drivers in some dingy purveyor's joint kind of gamer but only someone sitting at a computer idling away time with a stable of game choices waiting on my generous monitor. I brook no shame for enjoying this pastime. Why would I? Seeing those out on the golf course daily hitting the little white thing or the card players shuffling and swatting down bits of cardboard, yes, and even those buzzing away at their sewing machines making quilts or clicking their knitting needles into adorable whatnots, I know that we are altogether, shameless idlers bereft of excuses for the dalliances. We find our "sport" absorbing and often enlightening. Gaming is a solitary event, but it is also peaceful. There are no critiques or snipes or jokes to fend off, no tea pots to attend or sandwiches to serve. You can read on your computer. Reading from a monitor can be habit-forming. After downloading books to stack on your library shelves that take up no virtual space at all,  you can sit at level-gaze with a screen properly positioned, your head and back comfortably erect and the text size and distance tuned to your specific requirements. At the same time as you read, you can also play your favorite music, sip tea, munch lunch or sample wine and doze on demand. It's really quite nice. It should be quite nice, but sometimes it is frustrating. Computer games are relatively cheap and come in almost every form you can think of. There are brain trainers, shoot-em-uppers, bursting  bubbles, solving crosswords, playing mah-jong  until you are blind and racing cars or flying planes like a pro. Sort of. There is a downside and it has nothing to do with "wasting your time" as the accusation is often flung about. Because game designers are at it to make money, they make changes to your favorite games, the ones that you go to when your daily walk or gym visit is over and you just want to veg a bit and straighten out your head. But you sit and tap on your game and oh no! It crashes or disappears and when you go to "help", there is none, even if you fill out every blank perfectly. The next step to reviving your favorite game that is no more, is the hard one. You are given instructions to do things that only computer experts should touch. For some reason, after getting to the right page of instructions, the language of the computer suggested is entirely unlike that in front of you, and you are lost. Step three is my version.  Give up. You need a new computer. Getting a new computer is death to many of the games you have come to regard as family, but just as family, sometimes you have to say good-bye and move on. Good-bye Luxor I, Good-bye Great Gatsby and all the Detectives who came and went, their mysteries now forever encapsulated, unsolved. Ah gaming!

Brow Zing

At the day spa today, I overheard a woman who had just had her eyebrows "done". She was thrilled with the job and when she turned and I saw the result, I thought I was looking at a revived Neanderthal. What, I wondered, could the lady be so pleased about? On a rather small face that had a halo of  blond hair, the dark brows stood out wide and long and fully arched. For certain they looked Hollywood, but more in the jungle genre of entertainment than the glamour scene.  As I listened in to the oohs and ahhs around me, I was not convinced that these brows were anywhere near attractive. Unless perhaps to a simian. But the lady was thrilled, even though it cost her almost a hundred dollars to have the hairy set installed  that looked as though they'd been kidnapped from an ape.  Eyebrows are up there to keep off sweat, rain and whatever else might flow down and get into the eyes. The hairs catch dust or any other kind of foreign material from invading the delicate membranes of the eye. And its little sisters, the eyelashes, do much the same.  I also read that, in a way, brows fend off predators much like the eye spots of other animals, to scare their enemies into thinking they are much bigger and stronger than they actually are.  To test that theory, one is supposed to look at the brows and the lower lids as one big eye spot when the eyes are in repose. Also, for expression, there is nothing as stunning as the eyebrows. The more to frighten you, my dear, is their purpose, thus keeping away nocturnal dangers. Now, this new browed lady's set of hairy male-like arches, were overly dark and reddish and sore looking, but she assured all of us other oogling females that "it didn't hurt a bit" and that They, The Brows, would settle down in  a few days hence. I dearly hoped so, because all one noticed at present, was an ominous set of larger -than-life hairy things approaching. At the counter, the woman said how dreadful it had been in the past, such as two months ago,  when women plucked their eyebrows until they were but a thin line and how ugly that was. I tried to duck and hide my normal natural brows that were evidently well beyond hope according to current fashion dictates. Like all additions to the face these days, eyebrows are king and not kong.  In addition to coloured make-up, glued on lashes, shots of Botox and its friends, lip plumpers, varnished white teeth and tied-in hair strands, here comes the age of the brow. There isn't much face left to "enhance".

Heels

Don't tell me you're a feminist when you're wearing six inch heels just to look "pretty". For whom? If your answer is "me" fine and good. If it's for the purpose of attracting someone else, uh uh. Granted, The Line looks leaner and taller in those killer heels, but I can bet they hurt like mad. Watching someone walk down a sidewalk or across a room in spikes, is like regarding a tightroper attempting Niagara Falls. You're not sure if there will be an accident with the La Boutins or not, and if so, how graceful will the fall be. When a little girl is old enough to wear hose, her first "girly" hope, is to wear heels. I have know parents who think it's cute for their little ones to begin the art of heel walking at the early age of six or seven. "Oh isn't she adorable in those tiny heels", they coo. Not in my book. I like to see kids as kids and not copies of tartlets, dolled up in ruffles and high heels, hair colour and a "touch" of lip gloss. Unfortunately, children are highly influenced by some parents who try to rush them into their adult idea of what is suitable. Naturally, children adopt the ways their parents direct. It's the nature of offspring to observe and copy. It's how the young learn: not what they are told but what they see. The saying, "monkey see, monkey do" comes to mind even though children are not monkeys. High heels are a kind of rite of passage for girls. I recall being thirteen years old and in my tomboy way, hotly denying the taunt that an older teen boy, Billy Shaw, in my neighbourhood, made. "Oh, you'll be wearing high heels before you're sixteen", he snorkeled. As it turned out, he was wise. At my first high school dance, a formal one, sure enough, I appeared in black patent leather shoes with a one and a half inch heel beneath the bouffant skirt of my long pink dress. My first heels, ah, and I loved them! Later on, my collection of heels became higher and higher along with the discomfort of wearing them. It seemed that to be taller that five three, was the point of it. Fashion magazines all showed the typical underfed six foot female regally aloft in her high heels, the ones models wear for photography only. Seeing them arrive at the studios, we learn they enter in jeans, runners and no make-up. The know that posing attire and paint are for the camera, not for comfort. Unfortunately, most young women who seek to attract lovers also opt for the high heel dream scene and prepare for it in whatever the media dictates is The Fashion of the day. Only when their conquests are met, after the third or fourth date, do they choose comfort over coup. The high heels however remain and seem to take precedent, still, over good sense. Billy Shaw was right!

And Then What?

When a driver, in a few minutes, let his road rage turn into assault causing a victim broken limbs, his life changed. He became a criminal. He ran off after the crowbar incident and is now  sought by the police. Because a woman honked her horn at him that, she stated, was "to warn him" of  her turn, he pursued her car and meted out, when she parked, what he deemed to be "justice". One minute of annoyance turned into a serious crime. If only each of them thought before each of  their actions, "And then what?" the situation may not have happened at all. How many times do we act impulsively without asking ourselves that kind of question? I think most of us do often in our lives. We remember those mistakes we made, and think what would have been if only we'd thought of the possible outcomes beforehand. Rash action gets us into all sorts of trouble even in day to day small things. Should I wear that piece or say that or cut my hair or buy that item, are among the many decisions we make daily. Investors, gamblers and entertainers have to make huge judgements that affect their entire lives and livings. Surely, they must ask themselves before they take those steps, if I do this, "And then what?" . Politicians  tread a fine line in everything they say whether it be as a tweet or an e mail or during an interview. What they "say" is watched closely and reported by experts in the matter of catching the public eye.  Unfortunately, electronic text has no capacity for verbal expression. Black and white cyber icons, instead, can be dropped in to give text colour. Once words have been spoken or texted, they are not easily taken back. Repaired impetuous outbursts still evidence scars and these are not easily forgotten. In the real world, even though we do say to ourselves "And then what?" we can make the decision to plunge in to just take our chances. Comment and blogging are without boundaries other than good taste, and even then sometimes one slips. Only once did I "slip" but later regretted that I had apologised. In retrospect, I learned that my enemies were actually the tasteless bad guys. But that's rare. The reason humanity continues to progress is to take the step notwithstanding: "And then what?"  Where would we be if the first plane had not taken wing or Columbus had not sailed, the atom bomb was not dropped or global warming wasn't brought to our attention. On the other hand, we use up the trees, melt the arctics, pollute the air, garbage the waters and kill off the wildlife. It's time to ask "And then what?"

Bad Bosses

It seems, one is either bossed or the boss. Any way you look at it, both are onerous.Those who choose being bossed might not think so, but they have power, too. A good boss can only be that, if it has happy, supportive people working under its command. After a thirty year period of working for good and bad bosses, I've learned this truth through observation. I hasten to say, that in my work, there were guidelines that involved ethics and hierarchies responsible to the public domain. Even still, somehow the curtain of authority had holes for bad bosses who leapt through sometimes with help. The best bosses I have experienced weren't always rule followers. Some of them took "the rules" and bent them to fit the occasions at hand. The bending process was beneficial because life isn't all black and white even though the law comes first and morality is prime. In the good boss era, there were delightful times when the fine line between boss and worker, disappeared and we operated as "good buddies" at the task. Those times were the most productive. They can also be slightly precarious if someone oversteps the boundaries forcing bossmanship to come in. The boss is always the boss and it's the job of one to manage even the smallest situations that can arise, but to do it with taste and strength and commitment to the worker as well as the task. It's a hard line to follow, but the best bosses are able to know when to be boss and when to step back which is what makes me think bosses are born, not created. The worst bosses I have had the misfortune to experience, were people who didn't have a care about anything but what they conceived as their goals and went about doing so in Attila the Hun ways. It was their way or you fell. In this case, the perpetrator was middle management and he had been hired deliberately to upset his workers. Upper management, the untouchables, directed this gullible type to go in and stir up trouble to break up a scenario in which there were too many wiser and more experienced worker folk that made them fearful of losing power. Their ideas were completely without substance, but they had the power to take power and that's what they did whether it bespoke intimidation or not. And it worked for a time. The weaker workers simply disappeared, but those why persevered and were patient and had lots of knowledge based on their experience, stayed. They knew how this would play out and it did. The "new broom" finally wore out and balance returned to the work place but not without scars. A good boss is respected and supported; he or she understands the worker having been one.  A bad boss, flings authority around until it finally hits back and all is lost: workers and task.

Polling

Poll results do not impress me at all. There are just too many "holes" in the game to make it credible. How many times have you been called and realized you were talking to pollsters and, therefore,  hung up immediately. I do the same mostly because the so-called pollster isn't one. Too often, they are a telephone salesperson whose lead line lies that they are polling when they are not. It's simply another dishonest sales pitch designed to frustrate your day and there is no point in wasting their time or yours in furthering the talk any longer. I hasten to say that it is true, some sales folk make their meagre livings this way and should not be abused on line. At the same time, my time feels as valuable as theirs and I don't want to be dragged away from my book or writing or anything by a ring on my phone. Even though I am member of the no-call set, it doesn't seem to stop these, to me, nuisance calls. But getting back to the real pollsters, it's a subject that bothers me. One I heard this morning, purported that a poll said people in B.C. , Canada, had been polled and two-thirds of them  approved of legalizing hard drugs not just marijuana. That polling statistic, is one I simply cannot believe. First of all, I wonder where the pollsters got the stats, second of all, the statement by the radio host, did not give any information on who was polled, the poll's breadth, the poll's location, size or reliability. Hard drugs? Two thirds of British Columbia is a lot of people, and I doubt very much that average persons in all the small towns in the province and those in large cities are going to agree that hard drugs such as heroin, ought to be handed out as needed. Somehow, it doesn't fit how I see two-thirds of the population anywhere, let alone even BC with its reputed rather free-wheeling character. I would have to ask a lot of questions, not about the subject presented, but about the poll itself. Too many media folk leech their information from odd sources, sometimes biased or too restricted, hoping that they find support for their shock-loaded, attention-getting motivated claims. I feel this is bad journalism. If reporters are going to use polls as the basis of what they hope to show credibility toward their piece, they must also make the poll one that is thoroughly credible. They lose credibility if they don't cover their reputations with solid authority. Even then, there are just too many of the silent majority population who will shun the tool of polling as truth. Good journalism is not lazy. It doesn't rely on polls as its only claim to proof. It searches out hard fact. It uses interviews of those who have experience and knowledge in the points they are trying to make. They lay out, when gleaned, the facts which may include as one of its tools, polls, but not using polls solely as truth.

Avatarism

If you have seen the Avatar film, you know what I mean. If not, avatarism , is my concept of the state of having a proxy of some kind, instead of the true you, at a function that you are supposed to be attending bodily. I have to say, right off, that I am not in favour of avatariam.  I am sure you have been at a meeting, for example, where an electronic gizmo sits at the table instead of Susie or Steve who "can't make it". They hear you and your company, and you can hear and perhaps see them via a screen or other device. They enter the conversation, sort of, and offer their input through the good graces of those who actually gave up other events to be there. Many meeting rules allow for this kind of "attendance" and even voting. Sometimes, it is valid for very good reasons, but most times, it is simply a lack of courtesy and commitment or otherwise, just pure nonsense. If you take the situation to an extreme, it puts the whole idea of allowing "ghostly presences" to "attend" meetings into the theoretically ridiculous area of only devices and no human flesh at the table.  Arguers of this idea will say, what's wrong with that? We are still talking and exchanging ideas and information: we see and hear and do the same agenda just as though we were there. My answer is, but you are not there. Your image is there, yes, but your body is not and it does make a difference. At least to me. When I am at a meeting, I want to see your body language in addition to your words. I want to hear if you sigh or grunt assent or denial or other forms of unspoken response during discussion. And furthermore, I don't want to have to gaze at six screens rather than the three dimensional person emanating his or her opinions.  It is harder to gather auras of selfness in a room through  hard copies of people on a screen even if it's in HD or Blue whatevers and a great sound system. It isn't you, the living, scented, glowing, breathing, warm blooded,  you. Today on air, I heard a millennium chap say that he couldn't attend a conference and was disturbed that he was not permitted to do so via his device. He had to be somewhere else, but was keenly interested in "being there". Well, honey, I wanted to say, in the real world, you have to be there, you are not your phone. It may be that you do all of your business including entertainment, shopping, security and family communication  from your phone, but you do have a body and oftentimes, it is actually required in its entirety. The present sickness of human beings thinking they are part of society when attached constantly to a small device stuck to their ears, are vastly ignorant of what society means. It means you and others face to face, not wire to wire. Your movements, gaze and presence are what you are. You are real; you are human.