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Because we all know how dangerous computers are on the inside.

Every Canadian who has ever lived in the last hundred years or so learns to have an inferiority complex by the time he or she is an adult.  It’s not something we are taught in school, but rather, what we are not taught.  Canadians are not taught that ours is the best nation on Earth.  Oh, we put a good face on it, but deep down we know the truth.  Or at least we think we do.

The main reason is because our neighbour to the south is the United States of America and they are the best nation on the Earth.  Or so they are taught.  Or so everyone thinks.  Certainly their accomplishments as a nation speak for themselves.  But are Americans really that much better off?

Maclean’s (a pro-Canadian rag) recently did a study which revealed some rather startling facts: the Canadian people are far better off than the American people.  I’m not making this up.  On average, Canadians live longer, eat better, work less, have more sex, have less debt, spend more time with friends, and, believe it or not, are wealthier.  I’m a little bit perplexed by these numbers my own self, but what they seem to be saying is hard to ignore — Canada would seem to be living more of the American Dream than America is.

Reginald Bibby notes the irony of the situation. The U.S. is a country that aggressively pursues happiness, but Canada seems to have just stumbled onto it. While Americans are putting in overtime to pursue the American dream, we’re at the pub having a few pints with friends. They may have bigger cars and bigger homes, but they’re living under a mountain of debt. They look richer, but the numbers prove that they’re not. The truth is that all of that competition, all of that keeping up with the Joneses, can take its toll. Getting ahead can be a lot easier when everyone is moving in the same direction. “The pursuit of happiness is ingrained in Americans as part of what it means to be an American,” Bibby says. “But in Canada, happiness is almost something of a by-product of coexisting peacefully.”

This may sound funny coming from a computer guy, but I’ve never been convinced that computers are essential or even useful in educating children whether you live in a poor country or a rich one.

I don’t know about you, but none of my basic education actually came from a computer. It was done the old fashioned way with pencils, paper, books, chalkboards and teachers. Even though we had a personal computer in the house from the time I was 10, I never played educational games on the it, I found them boring. What I did learn from the computer was how to use a computer, a useful skill in its own right, but by no means essential to becoming educated, at least to the primary level.

My oldest kid has a computer, there are even computers in his school, but as near as I can tell the only benefit he’s derived from them so far is improved hand-eye coordination. At his school he learns just as I did: with pencils, paper, books, chalkboards and teachers. By the time he’s a teenager computers will be essential for his education, not just because they are awesome information retrieval devices, but also because school boards won’t bother to purchase paper books and teachers will expect assignments to be emailed.

Happy Canada Day.   I wrote this for a some anarchist rag back in July of 1995.  The freedom to gripe is dear to me and my great country still lets me do it despite its many stupid-ass faults.  It’s a pretty rare article, but a bit prescient, given the state of things.  It put a grin on my face and I hope it will amuse you too.

Today I watched my television.

In addition to destroying my eyesight and my mental capacity, I felt it destroy my long-time hope to see the end of silly government and stupid legislation. I am talking, of course, about the proposal to extend the mandatory bicycle helmet law to adults.

I can’t possibly comprehend why anyone would think it necessary to make it illegal for an adult riding a bike to not have a helmet. I suppose I had been erroneously under the impression that bicycles were fairly safe once you had figured them out. Child helmets I can understand — kids are clumsy and they fall over all the time — but certainly Canadian adults aren’t that bad at operating bicycles.

I’ve ridden a bicycle for years and I’ve never hit my head. I’ve bumped my head many times while walking, however; I’ve been walking on my feet for longer than I’ve been riding a bike and I am definitely sure that on a per day basis, I hurt myself more often while walking.  In fact, I’ve done it all when it comes to head bashing: patio doors, windows, bunk-beds, barbecues, parking lots, people, car doors, fences, beams, headboards, door-frames, cows, etc, etc… I hit my head a lot, actually. It’s surprising I even remember the barest amount English.

I don’t consider myself to be anything but average in terms of head-bumping, so whether you want to admit it or not, I’m sure that you too have bumped your head many times while doing things besides bicycling. I figure that the average Canadian hits his noggin hard at least twelve times every year. This means that you can expect to hit your head about one thousand times during your lifetime. I’m willing to bet that none of these times are while riding your bicycle. Considering the number of times people do hit their heads, it’s surprising that someone isn’t trying to make it law to always wear a helmet, no matter what you are doing.

Not wearing a helmet doesn’t have the potential to hurt anyone else (in fact, you would think that crashing in to someone while wearing a hard plastic helmet would hurt more), so the only reason for wearing one is personal safety. But even if you were wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle, would that really prevent you from receiving bodily harm? This is very closely tied to the whole motorcycle helmet law argument, and it goes something like this: Sure, the number of fatal skull impacts goes down, but the number of quadriplegic bikers goes up. Imagine, because of your helmet, your brain gets to stay alive and enjoy your ruined body for the rest of your life. I would rather be dead, thank you.

This is not to say that helmets are a bad idea. If I was a road race cyclist, I’d probably wear a helmet. If I was keen on cycling down mountains, I’d probably wear a helmet. In fact, there are a lot of things I’d wear a helmet for, including mountain climbing, football, boxing and walking around in Toronto. But I have trouble understanding why I might need a helmet to bike to the corner store.

If bumping you head is something you worry about then fine, wear a helmet, because the choice is yours. It is also your choice to eat onion rings, play Nintendo, read Daniel Steele novels or clean your ears with Q-tips. All of these things are probably dangerous for your health too, but you aren’t likely to see black on white on a box of Q-Tips telling you that “Swabbing your ears with this product may cause hearing loss”.

Personal safety isn’t exactly something that you need the government to help you with anyway. It’s even a bit insulting for the government to pass such a law. It implies that they know more about your personal safety than you do. I know politicians. They’re not any more knowledgeable about statistics or our health care system than you are. Since few studies have actually been done on helmets in regards to bicycle fatalities, I know that they don’t have any more data on the subject either. Besides, bumping your head is a very personal thing — it’s none of the government’s business and they know it. The couldn’t possibly have your safety in mind when passing such laws. But they may have considered the following:

• Potential loss of tax revenue. If you die you can’t pay taxes. It’s in the government’s best interest to keep you living.
• Reduced medical expenses. Certain people actually believe that bicycle helmets will notably reduce government Medicare expenses. This is like saying that shaving your head noticeably reduces Athlete’s Foot. Still, the government may have believed these people. Personally, I believe that it actually increases extended Medicare expenses because it saves lives. Remember, the state pays for your hospital bill, not your funeral expenses.
• Legislation. It is also in the government’s interest to pass laws and policy. That way they can’t be accused of jerking around and wasting the taxpayers’ money, even if they really are.
• Legal Revenues. The fine for not wearing your helmet in British Columbia is one hundred bucks. In the first couple years, before cyclists take the law seriously, the government could stand to make a whole lot of money in fines.
• Jobs equals economy equals more tax revenue. If the government passes a federal mandatory helmet law, Canada’s twenty million or so cyclists are all going to need helmets. A previously boutique industry will explode overnight creating jobs, a stronger economy and subsequently, more government tax revenue. Assuming an average price of thirty dollars per helmet, the industry will experience about six hundred million dollars of growth. In GST, that gives the government about forty-two million; in manufacturer’s taxes, probably about fifty million; in corporate and personal capital taxes, about one hundred million. As a happy coincidence, the government will also get closer to it’s job creation goals.
• Control. Can’t have the people having any fun, can we? That just wouldn’t do. If one person bumps their head, obviously the entire sport will be ruined for the rest of us. So now, if someone hurts himself while riding without a helmet, the police can have him summarily charged, to remind him of his disobedience.

If the government figures that riding bicycles is so damn dangerous, why aren’t they making bungee jumping, hangliding and driving our highways illegal? Watch the local news some night. At least three of the stories are about fatal car-accidents. How many are about fatal bicycle accidents? The national number of fatal bicycle accidents hovers around 75 per year. This means that you have a 0.0003 per cent chance yearly of killing yourself while bicycling. Your chances of dying in a car-accident: 0.01 per cent. Your chances of getting shot in the United States: 0.1 percent.

In the government’s never-ending strive to control the lives of Canadians, I believe they have reached new lows of Big Brother control. I think, and I’m probably not the only one, that their control ends the moment you no longer endanger society. Who cares if a few people every year kill themselves while riding bicycles? Obviously riding bicycles is SO dangerous that it would be insensitive of the government to do nothing. What a pile of goat-load.

So let’s see this for what it really is: a cash grab, a control attempt, bogus legislation from a BS level running deep. Public safety is not the real issue here, because the public aren’t in danger from hitting their heads while bicycling. You’re not.  You are in more danger from a government that wants to over-legislate every personal facet of your life.  Tell ‘em where you draw the line.

Or that’s what Ian Usher got for his, after auctioning it off on Ebay.

Usher said he wanted to start over after breaking up with his wife so he put it all up for sale: his possessions, house, car, motorcycle, introductions to his friends, even a trial-run at his old job. On Sunday the bidding closed at US$384,000. Not a bad sum I reckon, though Usher says he was hoping for more.

Now the obvious philosophical question to ask: is this really a ‘life’ or just a collection of things and phone numbers? I’m inclined to think the latter. Relationships are not the kinds of things that can be bought and sold like a jet ski.

You literally train your entire life to do a thing and then you really get to do that thing.  It’s like a dream come true.  You tell yourself you are going to take take on the world, call your own shots and you do.  You do it with such vigor it becomes your life, more important to you than anything else.  You know nothing else.

And you do it well.  So well, in fact, that thousands looked up to you for your skills.  They loved you for being you.  Not a movie star or some great leader, but a guy with talent.  A guy who was useful.  And for years, being useful made you feel great.  You had a purpose, and that’s better than most folks.

But every now and again, you’d get this niggling feeling that something wasn’t right, that what you were doing was becoming less fun, more tedious, more frustrating, maybe unprofitable… the path you had chosen may no longer be the right one.  But the feeling wasn’t something a new hack couldn’t distract you from.

As the years went on, the happy moments would become few and far between and less precious by the day.  That feeling of usefulness was fading.  It would come and go but then one day it hits.  It had become stunningly, blindingly obvious that your job, your self assigned purpose, your sole reason for being, wasn’t fun anymore.  It was no longer fulfilling, it fact, it had become a vicious chore. There were no new hacks, not really, just variations on the same theme.  Every day the same, only each was more frustrating than the last.  All the quirky little things you once delighted in were now like little knives cutting away at your soul.  “Suck it up, sunshine,” you’d tell yourself at first, but after a while of doing that you’d realize it was just a dumb macho line and you’d feel embarrassed for thinking it.

The job was your life and since you didn’t like it anymore, by extension, you didn’t like your life.  You’d quit, that would be the obvious thing to do, but you can’t just quit, oh no, way too deep now.  Too many many responsibilities, debts, obligations and the like.  Too many people counting on you to carry out your purpose.  To many people you owe, people you can never run from, some of them with power too frightening to imagine.  They will have you, one way or another.  Oh, they’ll have you.

The dream job you’d worked so long to build had inadvertently become a prison, nearly perfect, the kind you could only design for yourself.  A prison without escape.  With few friends, few resources, and no choices left, the only thing left to do is the time, even if it is a life sentence.

Do you suppose libertarians start off thinking that way or do they get made by the system? I’ve been having lots of anti-government thoughts lately…

Apparently the government in Japan has passed some obesity laws.  Not obscenity, obesity.  Think about that for a sec — legal penalties for being fat. Now read this short story. We might be closer to that future than you think.

All I can think to say is that people shouldn’t let do-gooder public health unit busybodies make them feel guilty for who they are. The idea that smokers and fat people cost society more money is a bald-faced lie. Complete bullshit. I defy any health official to show me a scientific study that proves it. It costs the same amount of money to treat a pack-a-day lung cancer victim as it does to treat a clean living brain cancer victim. The only difference is the smoker is likely not going to live into his nineties, thus saving our society tens of thousands of dollars in pension monies.

I’m going to plug a local business in this post.

If you’re in the Stratford downtown and looking for a decent snack without doing the whole restaurant thing, you could always give Mr. Kim’s a try. Mr. Kim runs a convenience store appropriately titled “The General Store” and he recently installed a take-a-way sushi counter inside.

The sushi is top notch. Mr. Kim favours big uramaki rolls rather than wussy little hosomaki ones, so a little takeout tub of eight rolls is more like a meal than a snack. Miso soup is offered at no extra cost and the wasabi is always fresh. Sometimes you even get fresh peas.

Although Mr. Kim claims the eel rolls are his best, if you really want a monster sushi experience, I highly recommend the “Sun Shine” roll. It’s a big California uramaki roll topped with spicy tuna, sesame seeds and fish eggs. Not only does it fill you up, it makes your mouth burn for a good half hour afterwards. Best enjoyed with a nice cold bottle of beer, which unfortunately, Mr. Kim cannot sell. Yet.

He even has a bunch of tables in front of his shop so you can enjoy your sushi outside.

Mr. Kim’s Sushi
136 Ontario Street, Stratford, Ontario, Canada

Wit is not dead, it’s just that most people aren’t witty.

I go to this business maybe once a year to upgrade their accounting software and other refinements.  It’s a farm-related enterprise and everyone who works there is a guy — a big, strong, beer-drinkin’, ball cap wearin’ farm boy.  The only girl in the place runs the office and since the boss doesn’t know jack shit about computers she’s my primary contact at the place.

Gorgeous, healthy farm girl.  Hair like a hardwood blaze.  She met the love of her life years ago and married him, but she never stopped being one of the boys.  She would delight in talking shit and being rude and over the years that camaraderie sort of spilled over to me.  It could all become quite crass, but I’d play along because, well, I’m a guy, and deep down I’m also a pig.  Her husband looks like a dark-haired version of Daniel Craig, yet quips like, “When are you going to ditch that loser and go out with a real man?” was the kind of thing that would put a smile on her face.

Anyway, I get to the site to do a software upgrade and she’s there.  I notice right away that she’s pregnant.  Knocked up… oh, this is rich.  In keeping with our fine tradition, I do off a zinger: “I see you’ve been up to some naughty stuff, girl.  You don’t get that way playing tiddlywinks.”

And to this she replied, “Well, it started with tiddlywinks.”

Best repartee, evar.  Gonna be a smart kid.

…that are not breakfast related.

They are seen by many as solely a breakfast food, but something like Bob’s Breakfast Sandwich is only one of the many things you can do with the humble English muffin. Here are some others I do. All of them take 10 minutes or less to make.

Tuna Muffin Sandwiches
Many people don’t realize that English muffins make great little luncheon or tea-time sandwiches, particularly if you get the more crumpet-like ones (have lots of little holes in the dough). Any sandwich filler is good, but tuna is probably my favourite. For a reason I can’t fully articulate it tastes really good with a toasted muffin. Makes four little sandwiches.

• 4 English Muffins
• 120g canned tuna (1 drained can)
• 8 sweet bread and butter pickles, the kind that are a few millimetres thick
• 1 green onion
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise
• 12 slices of English cucumber (optional)

This is my standard recipe for tuna salad, I’m sure you have one too. Finely chop the green onion and the pickles and combine them with the drained tuna and the mayo and mix it up well with a fork. Don’t drain the pickles until they’re completely dry, in fact, a few dashes of pickle juice is not a bad thing here.

Cut in half and toast the English muffins. Put a quarter of the tuna salad on one half, top with three slices of cucumber and cover with another half. If desired, put a thin coat of mayo on the top half. If you really want send it over the top, melt a slice of mozzarella cheese on the top half and then put the sandwich together.

Muffin Crab Alfredo
You can put this on pasta, but then you would have to boil up some pasta. Alfredo sauce sounds all complicated but it is actually the easiest stuff in the world to make. Makes two halves.

• 1 English muffin
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup of table cream
• 2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese (and it has to be real cheese, not that funny stuff with the cellulose in it)
• 2 tbsp grated mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped imitation crab meat. Real crab meat can be used, of course, but this is hardly haute cuisine.
• 1 tsp of finely chopped parsley
• 1/4 tsp of granulated garlic

Traditionally, Alfredo sauce is made with butter, heavy cream and Parmesan cheese in the ratio of about 1:4:3. This recipe substitutes mozzarella cheese for some of the Parmesan and uses lighter cream.
Start by melting the butter in a tiny saucepan over low-medium heat. Add the cream, a bit at a time, stirring. Don’t let it bubble too strongly. When all the cream is incorporated add the parsley and the garlic. Next, slowly add the Parmesan cheese, constantly stirring. Let it bubble for a few minutes, stirring frequently, then slowly add the mozzarella, also stirring constantly. As the last of the cheese melts the sauce is going to thicken considerably, sort of like paste. If so, get it off the heat because it is done.  Put the crab in a bowl and nuke it for about a minute in microwave to get it warm. Place a pile of it on each toasted muffin half and drizzle on the sauce.

Pizza Muffin
Makes two of the little guys.

• 1 English muffin
• 2 tbsp pizza sauce
• 6 slices of pepperoni
• 4 tbsp of finely grated cheddar cheese
• 2 tsp per: pizza items. Pizza items can be anything you like on a pizza, as long as it is chopped up fairly fine. Onions, mushrooms, peppers, olives, etc…

Cut the muffin in half and toast it in the toaster. When this is done, put 1 tbsp of sauce on each half and scatter a tsp of each (or so) of your pizza stuff items on top. Top that with 3 slices of pepperoni and mush it down a bit. Then put on half of the cheese.

Nuke in the microwave for about one and a half minutes or until the cheese melts. Yum.

Garlic Cheese Muffin
This is pretty much the same deal as the pizzas. Makes two.

• 1 English muffin
• 1 tsp granulated garlic
• butter
• 4 tbsp finely grated cheddar cheese

Cut the muffin in half and toast it. Generously butter both halves and sprinkle the garlic on them. Top with the cheese. Although it works best in a toaster oven, you can also nuke it for a minute or so until the cheese melts.

English Onion Soup
Because not everyone keeps large French croutons around. Makes one bowl.

• 1/2 of an English muffin
• 400ml of onion soup (one 284ml tin of concentrate with some water)
• 1/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese (or if you are feeling really low down, a Kraft Single)

Toast the half of the English muffin in the toaster. Put the soup in a deep bowl or ramekin that is about the size of the muffin. A large latte cup is perfect. Float the muffin on top, cornmeal side down, and nuke for about a minute-and-a-half.  Put the cheese on top of that and nuke for another minute-and-a-half until the cheese melts.

Works nicely with vegetable soup too.

Some other applications of the English muffin:

• Hamburgers. English muffins fit smaller patties quite nicely
• Sloppy Joes. Toasted English muffins hold up quite well under the meat
• With Beans. A toasted muffin is quite good with baked beans on top
• Tomato sandwiches. One thick slice of tomato is all you need
• As Pancakes. Toasted ones are quite good with butter and maple syrup
• As Bagels. Very good with cream cheese and smoked salmon