Random September

Which turns out to be a little media heavy. I blame the accursed neck injury. It’s been a very passive month. Enough rationalization for being a slug. Onwards!

Recently, I read an article in the paper that broke down power consumption between residential, commercial and industry to consuming about a third each. Before I start the rant, let me just say that I believe everyone should “do their bit” to save power. However! That’s just the point, innit? In the summer, people are repeatedly warned to keep their A/C at 26 to prevent grid overload (while in offices, workers wear sweaters because of the freezing temps) and in winter, citizens are asked to turn off their Christmas lights, while after business hours, the office towers of downtown are lit up like… well, like Christmas trees. Can we get some perspective here? Some cooperation?

Found this link to an Italian Vogue slideshow via Twisty. I can just see some idiot pitching the concept: “it’ll be fierce! We’ll frame it like a security thing! Have all these hot guys in uniforms and the girls will be beautiful! I know – less make them look like Barbie dolls! And then have the guys get all rough! It’ll be sexy as hell!!” Sure. Or it’ll be misogynist, disgusting, ugly and glorifying violence towards women (I am especially unfond of the third image). I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these models (the women, that is) liked that shoot. And how many did it because if they refused, they wouldn’t get work in the future. Double exploitation. Lovely.

Another television-related moment came last weekend, when I was channel surfing late at night and came upon an infomercial for a Time Life 70’s music collection. The safe (it is Time Life, after all) psychedelics on the screen, the horrific tunes, all caused an acid flashback - and I’ve never tried acid - and I thought who’d want a 70’s collection? Wasn’t the music as awful as the clothes? Except, then I listened to the excerpts and realized I loved about half. The other half was dreck, but still. This, plus it being late at night, a time during which I have no resistance to temptation, resulted in me almost signing up for 4x$37, but I came to my senses the next morning. Luckily, my self-imposed rule about never making decisions late at night - or sending email, for that matter, as emotions tend to run much, much higher when it’s dark out – is by now strong enough to largely keep me out of massive amounts of trouble (and yes, I am aware that saying it is so asking for serious temptation to be dangled in front of me).

There’s a commercial on TV for a new LG fridge with built-in LCD TV. Fer fuck’s sake. Must we include the idiot box in all aspects of our lives? (says the woman who’s spent too much time gawping at it lately)

I was flipping channels not too long ago and swung by CP24 (one of the Canadian 24-hour news channels). In the small space for headlines, one of the items said “panda Lun Lun of Zoo Atlanta has given birth after 7 years of trying” and all I could think was “that’s a really, really long labour”.

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