Look at the world around you.  Look in corners.  Look at the stuff that you’re supposed to miss.

A while back we were in Vancouver for The Eastside Culture Crawl, a great and large open studio event that stretches from the Downtown Eastside all the way to Commercial drive.

Although there honestly wasn’t a lot that really thrilled us, I was delighted to find the “installation” pictured.

These fantastic clear plastic platform shoes were situated half way across a set of railway tracks on an overhead pedestrian walkway between Raymur Street and the end of Keefer Street.

I have no idea whether this was an intentional installation, or whether the graffiti was related to it, or whether somewhere in Strathcona a drag queen is crying her eyes out at having lost her shoes, but it was lovely.

Ever wonder how those big numbers get onto the grass at football games?

It’s really pretty simple: they’re spray-painted on using big honkin’ stencils.

It’s all pretty low-tech, involving one guy who drives the paint sprayer on a golf cart, one who sprays the paint, and two that pick up the stencils and move them to the next location.

The real challenge is that the CFL guys want the lines and number placed within inches – on a 110 yard long football field.   Trust me, there’s nothing more annoying than trying to remove and repaint lines a half hour before game time.

That, and realizing that one of the arrows points the wrong way.

I have accepted that all government advertising is actually pre-election bumph for the party in power, but really the Conservatives have taken things a large step further than anyone before them.

This time of the year one of the fixtures of Canadian life are boxes of income tax returns at the post office. Always in the corner, always on the floor, but always there.  (I’ll ignore pointing out that there are in fact damn few actual Post Offices left in Canada. Instead your mail services and delivery are handled by minimum wage clerks at corner stores and drug stores in what are euphemistically called “Retail Outlets.”)

In the past these boxes had exciting labels like “Your 2008 Tax Returns are here!”

This year though the Tory economic mantras have taken over, with each box stamped in Green “Real Tax Cuts at Your Fingertips.”

My first reading of that was actually ”Real Paper Cuts on your Fingertips.”

When that made no sense I looked closer, and realized that Harper’s people had slapped Tory election advertising on the boxes!

Needless to say, the last people who will benefit from any of Harper’s “Tax Cuts” are those who are likely to be preparing their own tax returns.

Last night I joined the ranks of those who love haggis.

Poor haggis, much maligned and eternally sneered at, usually by those who have never even tasted it. There’s a metaphor for life in there somewhere.

Twas of course a Robbie Burns celebration, with two friends (and their daughter) all decked out in tartan as expected.

We began with some lovely single malt, cheese and oatcakes, then salad.

Then, with much ceremony, the recitation of Burn’s words.

Address To A Haggis
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’ need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn,
they stretch an’ strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve,
Are bent lyke drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
“Bethankit!” ‘hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi’ perfect sconner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him ower his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll mak it whissle;
An’ legs an’ arms, an’ heads will sned,
Like taps o’ thrissle.

Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer,
Gie her a haggis!

What I hadn’t realized was that even if you don’t know all of the vocabulary, the Address To A Haggis is actually a very funny and  entertaining bit of work.  How can you not love:

An’ cut you up wi’ ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

And as the poem suggests, we cut it open and scooped out all of the steamy richness inside! The haggis itself is lighter than I ever expected, tasting more of liver (kind of like a Pâté) than oatmeal, and with a little gravy and potatoes quite yummy.  It’s a more sophisticated dish than I would have believed.

Really, give it a try!

Years ago I went to chef’s school.  Rule number one was wash your hands! Lots! Frequently!

This was so important that there was rumour that a test would happen for which they would distribute pencils – special pencils.  After the test they would turn on the black light and you could see who had touched their faces, noses etc as well as the (presumably specially treated) pencil.

And really, soap and water is 99% of cleanliness, and is all that’s needed.  Spend a few days watching all of the kitchen and cooking shows on TV. No-one wears a hairnet.  Not even Gordon Ramsay.

Somewhere around the time when people started to panic about AIDs, you started to see people in fast-food joints wear rubber gloves when cooking.  And of course, lesser establishments always had a fetish for hairnets.

Today though Costco took this all to new high.

At the hotdog counter (much beloved to all BC Place employees) the folks behind the counter wore:

• a hairnet
• rubber gloves
• and, for the guys, a second hairnet over their beard.  Including one guy with a goatee.

Let me be blunt.

If you force your employees to wear rubber gloves to make my hotdog I have to assume that you think they have dirty germ-ridden hands.  Does Costco assume that their people never wash their hands after using the toilet?

If you insist on hairnets it’s pretty obvious that you’ve never worked in a kitchen.  Hairnets don’t really keep hairs from falling off of people’s heads.  In fact it seems that the places with hairnets are usually the ones that have MORE hair show up on plates.

If you insist on hairnets for beards… my God you’re just crazy.

Olympics are coming!  To celebrate, and to demonstrate to the hordes of tourists that BCers are indeed a totally illiterate bunch, VANOC has removed ALL newspaper boxes from the Seabus terminal, but HAS installed these informative signs!    A total of about twelve boxes have been removed – probably due to anti-terror paranoia – and these new info boards have been empty for two weeks.

I’m honestly expecting gun-toting commandos to appear outside the terminal, just as the army suddenly became a presence at every airport after 9/11.

Wow – H1N1 mania has swept the nation – or at least has swept the media.

Well, except for Olympic Torch mania I guess, which had it’s own dedicated section of the Globe and Mail this weekend, and many pages in every other print publication.

Actually I don’t find that anyone that I know cares too much about either of these high-profile causes célèbres.  Some people are getting immunized, some aren’t, and few seem all that worried about getting the swine or any other flu.

Maybe it’s just that with the ongoing recession (or jobless recovery if you wish), global warming, terrorism, and road rage fueled cel phone distracted street racers all over the place, there just isn’t room in our fear calendar for a few aches, pains, and vomiting.

Besides, it’s pretty much impossible top know whether or not you can actually get H1N1 vaccine.

The North Shore News reports that shortages of H1N1 vaccine mean that many health care workers can’t be immunized:

This is the time of tests at Cap College – with Stats two weeks ago and Business Information Systems tonight.  I prepared extensively for the former, and totally forgot about the latter.

Guess which one will likely get me the higher mark?

Truth is I busted my ass on the Stats work, did ALL of the questions in the textbook, and generally knew the material inside out.

That was because I also knew that the test would be a real bit of work, and would require that understanding to even break even (the average in the class apparently was not much more than 50%.)

I went in confident, felt that I had answered most, and possibly all questions right, and slept well knowing that I was doing my best.

In the end I managed 43/50, or 86%, which at Cap will give me “only” an A mark.

The Business Information Systems test tonight was entirely multiple choice, 55 questions.  Prep for this test pretty much amounted to paying attention in class, highlighting what we were told to highlight in the text, and then skimming the yellow bits.

It didn’t hurt that twenty years of working with computer systems and following the computer press had made me very familiar with 90% of what was covered.

The rest was largely jargon, or so subjective that the obvious choice of A, B, C, or D jumped right out.

I hate to say it, but somehow I felt cheated.  There was no challenge, and consequently no sense of accomplishment.

(Yikes, most of the class finished twenty or thirty minutes ago – as I did, even after carefully reviewing all the answers – but some people are still working on it!)

Further to my quest to find out why I was overcharged by Chapters/Indigo. herewith is today’s correspondence.

My Indigo contact, Ms. Lynn 25210, now tells me that Indigo – Canada’s largest book retailer – doesn’t actually have an e-mail address for Putnam Publishing – a branch of the largest book publisher on the planet.

Really, I don’t make this stuff up.  Or this:

Canadian publishers incur costs that are unique to Canada. Therefore, there would not be a 25% mark up on the book.

Go ahead, read it twice – it still doesn’t make sense.

Here’s today’s exchange:

Dear Barry Rueger,

Thank you for contacting Chapters Indigo Online regarding the price of Canadian books.

Canadian publishers incur costs that are unique to Canada. Therefore, there would not be a 25% mark up on the book.

Unfortunately, we do not have the e-mail address for Putnam Publishing, and, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

We apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced. If you require any additional assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Thank you for choosing Chapters Indigo Online. Books, Music, Movies and More.

Sincerely,

Lynn 25210
Customer Service Team
Chapters Indigo Online
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca

I replied:

Hi Lynn,

“Canadian publishers incur costs that are unique to Canada. Therefore, there would not be a 25% mark up on the book.”

I’m not sure those two sentences makes sense.  First of all, the book in question was  printed in the US.  Aside from some marginal border costs what additional expenses would the Canadian distributor/publisher face that would not also be faced by American publishers?

Second, there certainly is a 25% markup on the book – the Canadian price is 25% higher than the US price.

Into whose pocket does that money flow?

Thanks once again.  Perhaps one of your superiors can provide the contact e-mail for Putnam Publishing?  You do business with them, so obviously have that information at hand.

Barry

Remember yesterday? When I wrote to Chapters/Indigo asking why we Canadians are forced to pay 25% more for books than someone in the US?

A nice lady called Lynn 25210 responded with many excuses, but basically blames the publisher, then directs me to the Canadian Booksellers Association.

Dear Barry Rueger,

Thank you for contacting Chapters Indigo Online with your request for information on book prices.

We appreciate and understand your concern regarding the variance in Canadian vs. U.S. pricing.

To provide you with some insight into this, as it relates to our business, the publishers assign the Canadian retail price for books and magazines at the time of printing, not the retailers, like Chapters Indigo. With books this happens at least six months before a title arrives in our warehouse or our stores. Subsequent fluctuations in the value of the Canadian dollar are not reflected. We do apologize for any inconvenience experienced.

As the price is printed directly on the book jacket, publishers typically make price adjustments only when the book is reprinted, and reprint cycles vary greatly between books and publishers.

Canadian publishers incur costs that are unique to Canada and as such keeping prices in line with the U.S. is difficult.

What is Indigo Books & Music Inc. doing about it?

* We are working diligently with publishers to continue to monitor and drive lower prices on upcoming releases which are already being reflected in lower book prices. For example a new book that retailed for $35 six months ago will now cost about $30.

* We have increased and will continue to increase, the number of promotional discounts on books in our stores to reduce the price of books for our customers.

* We are continuing to monitor the fluctuating Canadian dollar so that a fair and equitable long term solution can be put in place.

* We have begun to provide a greater discount for some items to coincide with the price parity between Canadian and US dollars.

We remain as committed as ever to the long term sustainability of the Canadian book industry which is in the best interest of our customers, employees, authors and the Canadian public. Thank you for continuing to shop Canadian.

* Finally, under no circumstances do we benefit from the price differences.

As this is an industry wide issue we encourage you to provide feedback as well to:

Canadian Booksellers Association

789 Don Mills Rd., #700

Toronto, ON M3C 1T5
Tel: (416) 467-7883
Fax: (416) 467-7886
Toll free: 1-866-788-0790

We apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced. If you require any additional assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Thank you for choosing Chapters Indigo Online. Books, Music, Movies and More.

Sincerely,

Lynn 25210
Customer Service Team
Chapters Indigo Online
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca

Does this mean that Chapters/Indigo accepts no responsibility for this rip-off?  Seems likely. In any case I wrote back to Ms. 25210:

Hello Lynn, you wrote:

“the publishers assign the Canadian retail price for books and magazines at the time of printing, not the retailers”

So, just to be clear, are you saying that it is the Publisher who pockets the 25% Canadian markup on the book that I bought?

If so can you provide an e-mail contact for Putnam, who are listed as the publisher for “Juliet, Naked?”

Thanks, Barry

And, just for fun, I also e-mailed Susan Dayus, Executive Director of the CBA.

The US Dollar and Canadian Dollar are once again at par, or at least very close.  So why are Canadians once again being robbed blind when we buy books?

I decided to ask. I e-mailed Canada’s bookselling behemoth with my query. Chapters/Indigo’s website promises “We’ll respond within 24 hours.”

Please explain how once again Canadian prices in your retail stores are so incredibly higher than the US prices listed on products. I purchased Nick Hornby’s new book “Juliet, Naked” last week, and was less than happy to see that the old trick of overcharging Canadians had returned.

$25.95 US vs $32.50 Canadian? That’s a whopping 25% mark up, at a time when the two dollars are within pennies of each other.

Last year when the dollar peaked and was at par with the US buck you folks actually backed down and charged the US price printed on books. I didn’t notice when that practice disappeared, but assume that it was as fast as humanly possible.

So, please offer me a plausible explanation why I should pay so much more for a book bought in Canada than an American would – a book printed in the US, and which presumably costs Indigo/Chapters almost the same amount as a US bookseller would pay.

I’ll keep you posted.

PS – based on the first two pages alone, I’d say that Hornby’s new book is one that you really should read. Just make sure to buy it on-line from Amazon and save yourself a lot of money.

As noted previously, this fall I returned to school.  I now a registered student at Capilano College University, taking two courses BADM 210 1 – Business Statistics (with Joey Sarreal) and BADM 201 – Business Information Systems (with Amir Ghaseminejad).

I have to say that dealing with Cap has been a pleasure. The staff – even the Registrar’s office! – are friendly and professional, the lineups short or non-existent, and overall getting registered and in place is  a breeze.

Textbooks of course are grossly overpriced, and the Stats text included a CD of software that wouldn’t run on my Dell because the software (Visual Statistics) refused to believe that the CD was in the drive.  One more reminder that copy protection is always a bad idea.

The author of said software though, one David P Doane at Oakland University in Michigan, sent me an unlocked copy that should work fine.

That’s good, because McGraw Hill’s e-mail support address bounces back as “does not exist”, and no-one responds to requests via their on-line web forms.  I am reminded that by and large students are seen as either sources of profit or nuisances by pretty much everyone in the Education racket.

Statistics is a course that I actually took some thirty odd years ago, and some of it is familiar.  It’s frightening to think that I took that course pre-statistical calculator and pre-personal computer.  Or, to be more exact, at a time when there was no way I could afford a fancy $750 HP calculator with lots of buttons and Reverse Polish Notation. (mmm… I can still feel those keys go “click.”)

Now days you’ll walk through a couple of Standard Deviations by hand, then move on to the $35 TI Calculator for all following work. It’s just so much faster.  Kind of like my Grade Twelve math teacher at Kelowna Secondary School – Mr. Clarke? – who stated that he wouldn’t teach us how to calculate a square root because “there’s a table in the back of the book.”

Joey Sarreal is a remarkable teacher, and I am amazed at the sheer volume of material that we’ve covered in three weeks. It has been intense, and each week there have been moments when I thought that I was losing my grasp, but each time I’ve recovered by the end of the three hour class.

It does help that this time around I have the capacity to really focus and devote the proper time to these courses.  I was told to plan for three hours of my own time for each hour of class time, and for Statistics that has surely been true.

Business Information Systems is basically an introduction to all things computer which I assume will move into more corporate IT knowledge.  It really is aimed at kids whose computer background begins and ends with MSN and iPods. To date it has involved reviewing a lot of things that I’ve been doing or reading about for nearly two decades. Amir Ghaseminejad is about the most enthusiastic teacher I’ve ever had, and people seem to find that really infectious.

I’m just glad because this very easy course is good balance to the rigors of Statistics.

Capilano College is one of the nicest places I can imagine spending time. It’s located in a lovely forest, it’s compact and friendly, and it has a lovely ambiance. Certainly a darn sight more pleasant than either of Carleton University (where I worked) or Humber College, the “jewel” of Rexdale, Ontario where I studied film.

Still, the food is another tale.  In a nutshell, you’ll be charged stadium prices (yes I’m thinking BC Place) for decidedly ordinary food. Why don’t they just sub it out to White Spot and make everyone happy?

Why I prefer Amazon.com over Indigo?  The usual reason – American companies give better value, and their web site is a lot easier to use.

Here’s Indigo’s shipping prices for ONE BOOK – $7.48

See Details on Premium Shipping & Handling

• Premium Shipping offers 2-4 day delivery service, costs $4.99 per order, plus $2.49 per item and is available for any order delivered in Canada.

Here’s Amazon’s shipping prices for ONE BOOK - $5.90

So, why does Indigo charge a buck and half more?  I don’t know, same reason they charge $25 to join their “rewards” program I guess.

From the page containing to Soo Star’s story of Harper’s “off the record” speech last week.  Don’t try to tell me that the ad placement was accidental!  Can the Borg be far behind?

Bit of a followup – check out this CBC story titled “Students increasingly worried about finances: survey“, and the bizarre right wing comments that follow.

Regular readers, or at least those that follow me on Facebook, will know that after twenty years in Non-Profit land I took a year off to work in Construction. It is good. It is body building. It is creative.

And it pays way better than non-profit work.

That career though was a sojourn, a respite from meetings and funding applications, and endless headaches.

Finally this fall I’m heading back to school, this time to study Business (Well actually I’m hoping to make it to CA status) with a firm eye towards making decent money, both in the present, and in my probably still long off retirement.

Speaking of money, here’s a quick tab on what it costs to attend university in BC – Capilano University to be exact (the university formerly known as Cap College until BC, like Ontario before it, decided that hencforth there shall be no community colleges, just Universities with slightly less lofty profiles).

To apply (via http://www.bccampus.ca)……………………….. $25.00

Document Evaluation Fee (for past learning)…………………. $25.00

Transcripts ……………………………………………………………… $20.00

3 Three credit courses at Cap (one semester)………………….$981.00

Incidental fees *………………………………………………………..$212.13

So, just to get in the door, I’m committed to $1263, and that’s not even for a full course load.

Plus books. $376.95 – and those are cheap textbooks, ranging no higher than $130 each. (why is it that a Canadian bestseller that might move 5000 copies will sell for $35, but a first year text book that will sell ten times that many will cost $150?  Could it be a captive market? Greed?)

Of course, for an adult returning to school the real issue is how to feed, clothe, and house oneself.  Kraft Dinner and ten guys to a two bedroom house is not going to happen.  Plus adult people have adult expenses.

So of course I have applied for Student Aid.  Who knew that my living costs would be only $4,301 for the term! Why that’s $1, 075 a month! Hoo-EEE!  Let’s go buy a Cadillac!

Wait, no – If I own a car they’ll deduct the value from my funding.  For that matter, If I own a business (aka am self-employed) and actually claim that the business has assets, they’ll also use that to disqualify me.  And it’s already assumed that I can “contribute” $12,000 towards this project called “education.”

Even though I don’t have $12,000.  I spent my riches on rent, food, and – OK I’ll admit it – a trip to the vet for my dog.  How irresponsible of me.

Oh, and I bought tools and clothes for work.

Right now I tend to think that the likelihood of getting anything out of Student Aid is about zero.  Plus I’m beginning to think that even if I do get funding it’ll be such a pittance that it’s hardly worth the bother.

* Incidental Fees for Term Enrollment, Student Union Membership, Cap Courier Membership fees and U-Pass if applicable.

I can think of dozens of politicians right now – and few RCMP members – who could learn a lesson from this guy.

Sure, shooting little duckies was dumb, and posting the video on YouTube even dumber, but you know what happened next?

He admitted his guilt!

“I did what I did and I’ll pay for my crime.”  Pleading guilty cost him $5000, with no complaint.

He learned from his mistakes!

“I had no idea you could only hunt migratory birds at a certain time. This has been really educational.” He then added that he had no intentions of ever hunting again.

Both of them!

“Because anyone that puts anything on the internet, you’re exposing yourselves and you can get yourself into trouble like we did,” Fraser said. “It’s embarrassing what I did and I’m very ashamed of the way I acted.”

And then used his lesson to teach us all!

“A few ducks were killed and that’s tragic.  But this has been getting coast to coast and international coverage when endangered species are being killed everywhere, all over the planet…. Animals that, you know, should be getting a lot more attention than a few ducks. That’s how I feel about it.”

In the last few months we’ve seen RCMP officers appear to lie in order to hide their culpability, months of government e-mail files deliberately destroyed to hide someone else’s culpability, and all manner of questionable if not illegal actions on the part of elected officials.

Even when caught red handed they just deny, deny, deny in the hopes that it will just blow over.  Or claim that they can’t discuss anything becasue “it’s before the courts.” Or refuse to address specific constituent’s problems because  of “privacy law.”

If only some on these people had the guts and integrity to stand up, admit their mistakes, and learn from the experience.

I didn’t pick this photo, nor did I place it next to the headline on the CBC.ca web site.

Just tell me – shouldn’t Steve-o be going down the stairs from the plane?