Die Hard Three

I realized today that I’ve had exactly one decent haircut in my entire life. As you can tell from the previous sentence I’ve just returned fromt the barber and I’m not thrilled. I can’t say I’m disappointed either because I’ve been through this before.

Every time I visit the hair salon I try to recall the one time I got the perfect hair cut. How long was my hair at the time? How long had it been since my previous visit? And did I get a trim or a full do? Which salon did I visit? What was the name of the barber? What city was I in at the time?

A couple of days later, after I realized that I no longer looked like a prison inmate (I also have lots of orange clothing) I failed to write down any of the haircut initial conditions or parameters. Had I done so, today I would have half a chance at finding true happiness.

You see, I’ve never told anyone this before but my inability to get a decent haircut is the main thing preventing me from getting married. Wedding ceremonies are supposed to be perfect and no woman wants to get married to someone who looks like he’s just escaped from some facility that is designed to prevent people from escaping the facility.

Shirt and hoodie

I was on the tube earlier today and this dude sat down next to me and started up a conversation. Someone had just told him that he looks like Malcolm X and he had no clue who Malcolm X was. I was not about to comment on whom he does or does not look like (I’m not qualified to make such a distinction) but I was able to tell him who Malcolm X was.

Malcolm X was an African-American civil rights activist who was played by Denzel Washington in the movie. I think he was assassinated but I am not sure (I didn’t have my Google at the ready). There are similarities between him and Martin Luther King Jr. but they are most definitely two different people.

So dude asks where I’m from and when I say Canada he immediately responded “Ottawa”. I was very impressed (he has relatives there). Most foreigners have never even heard of Canada’s capital (I mean they know we have a capital city – duh, all countries do – it’s just they don’t know what our’s called). It was kind of refreshing to have someone finally get it right after so many Torontos, Vancouvers, Calgaries, Montreals, and Winnipegs(?).

As we arrived at his station, he told me he’d always wanted to see Diagonal Falls. The doors opened and then just like that, he was gone. Never to be seen again. By me. I’m sure lots of other people are looking at him right now. Anyway, here’s a photo of Malcolm X?

Well?

Thinking about yesterday’s post, I realized that no society has every erected monuments to their failures like they do for their successes. No one wants to be reminded over and over again about the low points but I think the best way to avoid repeating the negative parts of one’s past is to be presented with constant, in-your-face reminders of your mistakes.

Take me for example. Two years ago I tried to build a remote-controlled lawnmower and during the acceptance test phase, I almost cut off my thumb. The huge scar on my hand serves as a reminder to check the battery leads *before* engaging CutterBot’s drive system. I’m never going to make that mistake again.

What I would like to see littered around Ottawa is a bunch of monuments to some of Canada’s more notable failures. We could have statues of a long gun, a helicopter, a sponsorship, a database, Afghanistan, an election, a second database, a roofless roofed-stadium, a fifth-generation fighter jet, a City of Montreal health inspector (meat packing division), and Bruce Firestone shaking hands with Alexi Yashin.

Isn’t it about time we put the “monument” back in “monumental failure”? I think it is.

Should say: All Non-Underwater Destinations.

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I’ve visited central London a bunch of times over the past few years and I’ve noticed many of the structures around the city seem to serve no useful purpose other than to commemorate events or individuals. Maybe it’s because they are either unsuitable for commercial / residential use or they’re not properly zoned for utility infrastructure / pubic transportation. Take this thing for example: I have no idea what it is or what it is for. All of the people standing around it said they were waiting for friends or relatives. So from what I can tell it’s some kind of navigation marker for pedestrians.

Pedestrians under the age of five apparently.

The purposes of some of the other structures are more obvious. This statue celebrates the “victory” of Nelson over the French-Spanish-Portuguese-Italian Armada (Spanish for “water army”) at Trafalgar. It’s unclear to me why this is even here.

Did he win because he was better or because his opponents couldn’t effectively communicate with each other?

It said on the plaque that he got shot in the face, standing in full view, with no cover, on the deck of a warship, within range of the enemy, in the middle of a huge naval battle. I know he was a brilliant tactician and all that, but come on, how exactly does this count as a win? In chess, if your king dies, you lose the game. Any contest I’m in that concludes with my funeral is, by definition, a loss.

So what can one take away from all this? Well for me, if, after emerging victorious from some competition, I’m not alive long enough to enjoy the post-event celebratory sex, you can just give the ribbon to one of my opponents, I don’t care which one. It’ll make him feel incredibly uncomfortable (seeing as I just died and all) and he probably won’t accept it, but please do try.

The word “brilliant” means different things depending on who’s saying it. In the UK it’s a synonym for “good”. In North America it means “shiny”. Every now and again, when I travel, I pick up a local word and add it to my active vocabulary. On this trip I’m going to bring back “boot” with me. It might even be of some use if I ever get a car.

The other day someone called my blog “brilliant” and I don’t know what to make of this. I’d like to believe it’s true but the problem is that the same individual who said it, once convinced five people (himself included) that going to see Howard the Duck was a good idea. If you’ve ever seen Howard the Duck (it’s a movie) you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

Butterbeer: a brilliant idea?

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The Harry Potter Studio Magic Ride and Tour was ok I guess. I imagine one really needs to see the films or read the books to properly appreciate it. But even without all that background stuff there were some things that I noticed about the Harry Potter universe that are kind of disturbing.

You know how Harry is locked in that cupboard under the stairs for the first 10 years of his life? Well according to the movie people, located in that cupboard with Harry was the electricity meter for the entire house. The meter reader guy should have noticed some point over the ten years he was checking the meter (once a month?) that there was a child locked in there. The fact that he did not report this to the police is very unsettling.

One part of the series was based on a Dutch novel called the Golden Egg and this was not written for kids. Apologies to parents of young children for drawing attention to the existence of this Harry Potter-related story.

Parents, now that they are aware of it, Godspeed in preventing your children from reading it.

The crew on the set called this contraption “The Widowmaker”.

Or that’s what they would have called it if any of the actors using it were old enough to be married.

Here’s a replica of the house I helped build.

Some of the toilets in this facility were among the best I’ve ever seen in the UK.

Others, not so much.

The character of Hagrid was 100% an animatronic robot.

After seeing this I’m sure the film series just got five times creepier (albeit unintentionally).

The entire facility was 100% wheelchair-friendly. Finland, you could learn a lot from the good people at Warner Bros.

So my travel companion decided that we should go on the Harry Potter Magical Movie Studio Wonder Tour. I’m very excited. As you all know, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. I haven’t seen any of the movies or read any of the books (I hope the tour is spoiler-free) but I have followed all of his exploits in the media quite closely. I remember the fire that burned down Hagrid’s birdcage set, the untimely death of Principal Dumbledore’s human, real-world counterpart Sir Richard Harris, the series’ worldwide lifetime box-office gross, the food poisoning incidents, and other things.

If the tour does have spoilers, I hope they’re for a series of movies I have seen.

When I get back to Ottawa on Monday I’m going to call in sick for the rest of the week and watch all the movies. I’ve been meaning to do that for a while now and I think the time is right. And the best part is: I’ve decided that I will watch them all…

sequentially.

Even having not seen the films, I do take one issue with the Harry Potter universe: the magic. From what I can tell, all the characters have access to it but they are unable to use it to solve any of their problems. For example, why can’t Hermione just use a spell to remote-kill Voldemort? The school-age experts to whom I’ve repeatedly asked this question all tell me the same thing, “It’s because there are rules that govern the magic – it’s all in the books. You should read them. Stupid.”

Yeah, I’m the one that’s stupid, Miss I-believe-in-unicorns.

See this is where the problem is: phenomena that is governed by a set of rules is called physics and by definition, magic is something that operates outside the laws that restrict everything else. I will submit to you that it may be magic to the non-magical, but for the wizards and she-wizards who practice it and (for God’s sake) study it in school – it follows a set of rules, ergo it’s just another science class.

With all this in mind, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to enjoy the films. To give you a better idea of where I’m coming from, imagine what it would be like if in one of the movies Harry, Hermione, and Fred were in London and they jumped on a bus that looked like this:

It would kinda ruin the magic for you, no? Well, that’s exactly what happened to me when I heard that one of the characters (the “smart” one) had access to a goddamn time machine and she used it to help study for her A-levels instead of going back in time Terminator-style to kill the guy bent on murdering her best friend and enslaving humanity.

And don’t give me any of that philosophy crap for my time-travel assassination plot being morally and ethically wrong – going back in time to kill someone who, in the present day, is trying to come back from the dead to go on a killing spree is not just morally acceptable, it’s the right thing to do.

Tour’s about to start. More later.

* as in “I have a bone to pick” – get your mind out of the gutter.

has got to be this:

This is a Piccadilly Line service for Cockfosters.

I could write for pages about why it’s so awesome (but I won’t, mostly because it’s so obvious but mostly because I’m so lazy). Some people use motivational posters and quote-of-the-day calendars as a source of inspiration to help them get through difficult times, but not me. All I need is that robot lady with the British accent telling me where I am (Piccadilly Line) and which direction I am heading (Cockfosters).

Most people don’t know where they are and they definitely don’t know where they’re going. This is a huge problem. Think of all those thousands of Canadian Civil Servants who have spent the better part of the last twenty-five years trying to procure aircraft for our military and coastguard. It must be absolutely soul-crushing to spend the most productive third of your life, day in and day out asking the same questions, “Did the helicopters come in yet?”, “Any word on the helicopters?”, and “I had to go to the toilet and I saw Shaun from receiving called. Do you think we got the shipment of helicopters we ordered?”

When taxpayers complain about government procurement they focus on the financial cost. This doesn’t concern me. Newsflash – the system was not designed with cost-savings in mind. What concerns me is all these people who are forced* to work on these endless**, meaningless*** projects for years and years. In the damage assessments that inevitably follow these failed programs, no one ever takes into account the toll on these broken people. If they did, the report would be even that much more depressing.

Service.

* If you think they can just quit, I have another eight-word phrase for you: “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha!”

** Still no helicopters.

*** If the core objectives (i.e. procurement and helicopters) of the project don’t end up happening, it’s a pointless exercise.