App my life

So I want an iPhone. I mean, who doesn't? They're shiny, allow you to check email, surf the web, play games and there's even an app to tell you if someone is a cylon. Obviously, I need this. But here's the thing:

Travel rates SUCK.

For the US, I'm looking at $1-2/MB and for Europe around $5. Given my basic package for use in Canada would include 500 MB/month, you start to see the problem. (The fact some companies put the prices per kB to make the numbers look small says a lot. They tried to fool me. It didn't work >_>).

I understand that when I step away from my cosy home country I'm transmitting waves on someone else's network, but this is a MOBILE phone. I want to be mobile! That doesn't mean a quick trip into town; I need to use it all over the world. After all, while it's a close run thing, I can manage without checking livejournal while I walk to work. (OK, once I went into a coffee shop en-route but ONLY ONCE). While I'm propping up a bus shelter in Rome waiting for a vehicle that may or may not show because timetables are more suggstions in Italy then I need my smart phone and google maps.

One thing I did discover in my harassment of cell phone companies at the mall was that the Blackberry compresses data by 4x the amount the iPhone does. So while the data plan would be identical, in theory I should get considerably more bang per MB on the Blackberry. (The Blackberry bold, since I was told this was better for world travel). A google search of this fact revealed it to be true, but oddly there weren't 800 listings of people saying this was an absolute must for users with ADHD when it comes to countries. Does this compression not make the difference I'd naively think it should?

Blackberrys are supposed to be unrivalled for email. Unsurprising, since this was what they were designed for. I am told though, that web surfing is not nearly as good and there are many less apps than for the iPhones.

Has anyone else hit this dilemma? What did you do and do you regret it? (Confessions limited to phones if reply is public ^.~).

America's Got Talent

"How do you feel about blowing off half a day of the conference?"

"What an outrageous idea! I'm here to learn not to holiday!"

"We've got tickets to the live recording of 'America's Got Talent' in Orlando."

"... I fell in with such a bad group of people here."

So it turns out that Britian's contribution to American society is ... game shows. 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' (which morphed into a show of the same name, but substantially less money), 'Pop idol' (which morphed into 'American idol') and now 'Britain's got talent' (the morphing of this name will be left as a problem for the reader).

The last of these shows (for those not indoctrinated via Susan Boyle) involves any form of activity from singing, dancing, juggling, stripping (... we'll come back to that one), acting and so forth with your prowess being assessed by three judges. These crushers of poorly conceived dreams were Piers Morgan (who pretty much failed every act before it was done), Sharon Osbourne (wife of Ozzy) and Howie Mandel (known for his fit knocks because of an OCD that makes him hate hand shakes).

Watching the show live is far slower than the resulting production. We were told to arrive at 6 pm, yet they weren't due to finish recording until after 11. In addition to breaks between acts, there was a large amount of time spent on audience filming where we were told to pretend to be cheering a contestant, booing them and gazing at the stage with the intensity normally given to the finale of 'Lost'. These snippets were clearly going to be used as fillers in the editing room which just goes to prove; live audience reaction? Not so live. As it was, we gave up on America's talent at 9:30 pm and disappeared to find the more certain talent of the Cheese Cake Factory. The judges should have done the same; chances of passing to the next round dropped
exponentially with time.

The dress code was strict; no shorts, no hats, nothing with a logo printed, no bags, cell phones or cameras. Overall (it was stated) our attire had to be 'hip'. This caused raw panic among the group of astronomers I was traveling with. We had dedicated our life to Physics ... largely because we had failed to be exactly this.

Biggest surprise of the night? Probably the 74 year old grandmother who performed a heavy rock song in a spangly black dress. Worst act? I'd say the stripper. Yes, that's right, this guy's speciality for one of the biggest talent shows in the world was removing his clothes, down to a tight pink tee-shirt and Y-fronts. The judges laboured the point that this was, indeed, the smallest talent they had ever seen.

There was also a British (and everyone seemed okay with that ...) juggler, a knife thrower and an ex-army dude whose story begged the producers to use the 'intent staring' footage they'd pulled off the audience earlier.

During our return journey, I debated whether I should have entered myself. After all, I did have my conferenece presentation all ready to go right there on my laptop. There were some damn fine graphs in it. Damn fine.

Once they are up ....

The crack of dawn (actually a few minutes before) found me sprawled on a blanket on the grass at Cape Canaveral watching as the space shuttle, Discovery, launch on one of its final missions. Said vertical departure was scheduled for 6:21 am and due to a cunning plan that saw us with a NASA employee in our car (the fact she was on crutches was not our doing), we bagged VIP spots inside the Kennedy Space Center about six miles away from the shuttle. This is almost as close as you can get, since greater proximity results in death from fumes, noise or pissed off alligators; largely to be avoided.

At 6:10 am, the International Space Station (the shuttle's destination) could be seen as a bright, fast moving speck crossing the moon. This was the indication that the narrow window for launch was now open and with no problems to forestall it, the engines fired and Discovery vanished in a white burning mass that lit up the night. It had risen well into the sky by the time the noise and vibration reached us, and we followed the reverse shooting star until the speck finally vanished, leaving an artistic cloud design that was dyed different colours as the sun rose.

My photos are still on my camera, so I am going to cheat and steal one of Alison's:

I've seen a couple of launches before, but always in the day time. Technically, this was not a night launch, but the experience cannot have been terribly different since the only hint of dawn was a slight lightening on the horizon. On one of my previous times I also had VIP tickets, allowing a close viewing spot, and was able to see the shuttle physically turn over as it ascends (the fuel tank is bright orange which gives away the orientation if you can make it out). In the dark, this was impossible since the shuttle was completely obscured by its burning fuel but you were able to follow its path for considerably longer.

Escaping the Space Center was rather less fun and we succeeded in moving 2 miles in an hour. I declare this speed suboptimal. Still, four hours later found us eating a large breakfast .... or was it lunch or dinner? .... with eggs, soar bread toast and sausage \o/

I also discovered Starburst jelly beans. As a result, I still feel fractionally unwell.

Row your boat

So canoeing? Way harder than I was led to believe. Okay, so trip was might have been entirely partially my idea; a celebration of the fact that water is in liquid form in Florida. I also had a short wooden paddle but, if I was strictly honest, I doubt it affected my technique all that much.

We rented canoes on the Silver River in Ocala; pretty route that wound through thick greenery packed with wildlife. We saw turtles (huge ones), alligators (huger ones) and monkeys (less huge but made up for it with quantity). I'd previously only heard rumours of wild monkeys in Florida; largely from Curtis who also tried to tell me that the British bird population had turned carnivorous and was eating the cows. I believed neither story but am now casting a suspicious eye on our sparrow population.

There are some that is, all of our canoe trip who might argue we were utterly slightly optimistic about how far we could paddle in one afternoon. (This might have been partly because we rented boats at a place further down from our original port of choice.) However, the fact I am having some difficulty moving my fingers from the top keyboard row to the bottom speaks for itself is coincidental. The weather was beautiful, the wildlife stunning and the injuries ... well, I at least I have free health care again.

The only blip on the trip was the presence of a large number of motor boats whose engine exhausts are basically at the level of a canoe. At first, I was irritated by these creations; the noxious environment-damaging metals beasts! By the time I was heading back, I was furious. Damn it all! Why wasn't I on a boat with a BBQ, eh?

The distance of the trip is a subject for debate. In my personal opinion, an unfortunate wrong turn caused us to bag half the coast of Florida. Length-wise.

Faux-pas of the hilarious kind

"This is not what is known as an SPH calculation. This is a real hydrodynamical system."

And with that single sentence from our colloquium speaker today, my week was made.

For those who through incomprehensible reasons have not been reading my thesis as their bedtime story book, 'SPH' and 'AMR' are two rival techniques for simulating gas in astrophysics. The first represents the gas as a series of particles while the second maps it onto a grid. Because these implementations are extremely different and the computer codes large and cumbersome, most people learn only one technique and remain fiercely loyal to it throughout their careers. Yours truly is, as you might have guessed, an AMR grid coder or, as so beautifully put above, the coder of 'real hydrodynamical systems'. (^____^)

Okay, I admit, the guy misspoke and meant 'semi-analytic' (a technique in which a recipe for a process like galaxy formation is used, rather than following the actual event in the simulation) not 'SPH' but we all know it was a Freudian slip.

RE: Your mail

No one likes replying to distressing emails. If someone has said something to upset you, why on earth would you want to write back? Still, it in an inevitable fact that we all need to deal with such events from time to time. This morning, I had the misfortune of receiving two such missives. The first was linked to my research, the second to my role playing game. The amazing point was that I realised my answer to both parties was essentially the same.

Being able to link a message regarding simulations of galactic evolution with one concerning your alter-ego as a teenage Japanese boy is not something that can be achieved every day. It is therefore with some pride that I present the following delete-as-appropriate response:


Dear ex-advisor / RP moderator,

After giving your email detailed consideration today, I have reached the unfortunate opinion that you are quite mad. Your request that I re-run all my simulations / stop dead a plotline after months of work is excessively unreasonable. Your justifications for wishing this to occur do not make any sense since no one else believes this change will make a difference / this plot line does not involve your characters. Additionally, the work is all done / characters are controlled by me, not you and you do not have the right to interfere with no consideration to the effort I have put in or my views.

I would be more inclined to heed your opinions if this was a single occurrence. The fact remains, however, that I have spent a huge amount of time compromising and altering the wording in the paper / character events to please you, despite the fact you will not do the same in return.

Given I am first author / the mun of these characters, I think your insistence that such minor topics are corrected by me, at huge personal expense in terms of time and energy, is both selfish and upsetting. I should like to remind you that this is not my main priority and that it is supposed to be science / fun.

I do not wish to not publish the paper / quit the game, since I think there are many aspects that are extremely good about it. However, I will not be bullied.

Yours,

Finger prints

It transpires there are times when twitter's 140 characters are just not enough to get across what I want to say. Actually, that is perhaps a lie since my friend and I managed to thrash out the premise of our argument in about 6 tweets. Personally, I feel this opens the door to how Prime Minister's Question time might be improved if Gorden Brown and David Cameron had to conduct it via an iphone. Is there an app for that yet?

But I digress...

The subject of our debate was the use of fingerprint scanners in school cafeterias as mentioned in the children's news website here. (Why yes, this is where I get my news from. DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!).

Like the concept of national ID cards, such plans tend to open up a can of worms regarding an individual's privacy and even more where a minor is concerned. Words such as 'disgusting' and 'appalling' are banded around before being thrown on placards and taken to the streets. The question I am pondering (and it is a genuine ponder, I have yet to decorate a sign) is what exactly our enthusiastic protesters really object to.

On the plus side for the above mentioned scheme, paying for school dinners via finger prints would remove the need for children to carry money, prevent loss of meal cards and speed up the lunch queue. The first would hopefully save Mum and Dad the trial of finding the required change in the morning and prevent kids being bullied out of the cash everyone knows they are carrying. The downside seems to be a more certain way of identifying the child. Yet, is not the sproglet registered at the school by their name? They had better be, since it's a legal requirement to attend until the age of 16. The record of the finger print will doubtless be held for as long or as short a time as school records have always been held.

The same argument holds for national ID cards. Perhaps there is a point for not making them compulsory, but do not most of us hold passports? Are our wallets not filled with driving licenses, credit cards and other forms of identification that we use regularly for exactly that purpose? Why do we feel better about a system in which a photograph identifies us instead of our biometric data?

I conclude that people prefer a world in which fraud can exist. If they feel that they could, in principal, fake their passport, move to Texas and run for President they feel more free. On the other hand, when they can't get a car loan because some bastard stole their credit card and eloped with an Elvis impersonator to Vegas they get pissed, if only because they didn't think of that first. I like the idea that I could cut all ties and sail off to Fiji any time I desired as much as anybody, but if you want passport you can't do this without breaking a truck load of laws and I doubt any of us are prepared to give up what identity security we do have in order to make that procedure easier.

Even without the finger print scans that US border control diligently collect, if the Government wanted to track me they have school records, college exam results, job contracts, credit card purchases and tax filings (note to self: do these soon). The only addition my finger prints would make is to add a level of assurance that the data was accurate. But then, one of my most recent papers was entitled "A test suite for quantitative comparison of hydrodynamic codes in astrophysics". No one makes up shit like that.

Perhaps the point is; since we choose to operate as a society, it's too late for this argument.

That all said, if anyone is still concerned about the use of such a system for school kids, I would like to reiterate the assurances of Bethany, aged 12 from York:

"In my old school we tried using finger print scanning in the library - it never worked because people's hands were so dirty!"

Ewoks

I went skiing and found an Ewok village. This picture totally isn't doing it justice because I only had my phone camera with me, BUT! There were ramps, and ledges and tunnels all up in the trees.

Ewoks I tell you.

Or maybe a tree top trekking course, but I prefer to think it was ewoks.

Funny business

At the corner of my street is an artsy coffee shop that google revealed to be a front for the more dubious business of comedy shows. (There might possibly have been a sign outside too, but I never believed it until I saw it on the internet.) In particular, they have a small improv. comedy group which does a beginner's workshop on Mondays and a "workshow" on Wednesdays. The latter consists of more experienced performers practicing in front of an audience who pay the princely sum of $2 with the understanding that they might (read 'will') be used as guinea pigs.

This week I went along to the workshow where audience participation became required for the skit entitled "a day in the life...". In this scene, an innocent bystander is called to the stage and asked questions about their typical day after which a ... uh ... 'interpretation' of what they've said is reenacted by the troop.

The best part about this was that I was called up second. This meant I had the first run to consider in detail what I would say if I was pounced on chosen next:

Comedian: "So, what is it you do for a job?"

Me: "I build galaxies in my computer."

Comedian: "...."

And just like that, 7 years of research became entirely worth it.

Comedian: "I ... see. Do they look like any galaxy in particular?"

Me: "No, I try and avoid that since if they were to match actual galaxies, my job would be done and I'd have to find something new to research."

Comedian: "Right... Well .... what else do you do when you're not at work?"

Me: "I make up totally random stories to tell comedians on Wednesday nights."

Comedian: D:

Ticket to an improv. comedy show: $2. Turning the tables when you're hauled up on stage: Priceless.

I have to say, the resulting skit was admirable! I particularly enjoyed the person who represented the (failing) three-dimensional models on my computer. I was, however, totally outdone by the next people to be chosen. The comedian walked up to a group of three teenagers sitting together and asked the two that were sitting closest:

Comedian: Are you on a date?

Boy: Yes

Girl: No

At that point, the instructor froze the scene to point out that this was what was known as a gold mine and clearly both of the teenagers had to be brought to the stage.

Comedian (to boy): So why do you think it's a date?

Boy: Well, she asked me.

Comedian (turns to girl): Why don't you think this is a date?

Girl: Because I asked him (points to third member of their party still in the audience) as well.

After the show I was invited to dinner, which was largely a lure to try and find out whether anything I'd said on stage was true. We went to a Chinese restaurant where I got enough food for two dinners for $10. Not funny. Not ironic. Just tasty.

Soft heads?

A noticeable difference between downhill skiing in Canada and when I last went in France (admittedly 7 years ago) is the donning of helmets. Not just the kids but the adults too. I would estimate well over 50% of the skiers were wearing hard hats and they were also available to rent, along with the usual skis, boots and poles.

It's perhaps likely that this difference between the sides of the Atlantic is a product of the over-safety conscious north America. Although, one cannot rule out the over-fashion conscious French or it being a resort-specific phenomenon due to the vindictive nature of the ski lifts. Not that I am saying it is an idea without sense; in Alpine skiing the risk isn't so much your own skill, it is the buffoon who is barrelling down from above you. I particularly dislike snowboarders period since they tend to go down straight whereas skiers traverse the piste. They also have less control and frankly, they pose too much in their cooler outfits. I vaguely remember attempting to take them out in Europe with my ski poles.

As for a helmet, I was so taken aback by the question at the rental desk I said no. Evidently, I am all about fashion. I stuck with my tuque.

Downhill

... skiing that is.

Despite the local name for the escarpment around Hamilton, there are not any mountains in the Toronto area. There are, however, a few places where enough of a gradient exists to set up an Alpine ski resort. My adviser suggested a trip to Horseshoe Valley and, optimistic that the week had not gone so badly for him to seek my demise, I piled into the car with a couple of his kids.

I had not downhill skied since I was an undergrad and I have to say .... it's terrifying.

No, wait, let me clarify; the skiing is fine. Ski lifts are terrifying.

The first one we went on was bad enough. The chair moved at a fair speed up the slope and reminded me inescapably of the "hello Kitty" ferris wheel in Tokyo. It rapidly transpired that is was also the most modern and gentle of the contraptions at the resort. The next one we went on took particular pride in creeping up on the waiting skiiers and then setting off with a violent jolt, sending them rocketing into the air. Swinging wildly, the chair would then ascend, leaving its passengers to claw their way back onto their seats and pull the flimsy safety barrier down. Due to its predisposition for skiier-destruction, the lift stopped multiple times on its heinous journey, leaving its passengers swinging with an amplitude a baboon would envy. 

Shocked by such robotic evil, I failed to jump fast enough when the lift reached the summit and would have been trapped on-board, had I not thrown myself clear, loosing a ski and leaving the lift to rattle off with a squeak that formed echoes of a disembodied laugh. The only aspect of the decent I recall was that it was far less blood curdling that trip to the summit. I refused to go on that lift again. It was evil and this was no time to preach repentance.

The actual skiing was mild after that. It transpired I was roughly the same standard as my advisor's son.... he's eight, but since he has two younger siblings, I consoled myself with the knowledge the comparison point could have been so much worse. As we descended, I let him carve the tracks. I just followed. Mature adult overseer; that's me.

As I handed my skis in and left the cabin, I had to stop to allow a man on crutches to make his way down the steps in front of me. He still had his ski boots on. I wondered if that would still be the case in April.

Does my bug look big in this?

Hot swap icebot 12 for icebot 5

I am currently sitting sprawled on my floor watching the semi-finals of the men's Olympic hockey. My TV is only able to get one channel on its internal aerial but, since this is Canada, there wasn't any doubt that I would be able to catch this game.

The women's hockey team have already won the gold; they beat the USA team last night. There was nothing odd about the game until the commentator mentioned the USA players were all wearing heart monitors so that their coach could see who had the freshest legs. The two thoughts this produced were both mildly concerning; either the coach totally didn't believe a word his players said regarding their fitness or he considered them all duracell bunnies (or maybe energizer bunnies -- did anyone else not realise there were two?).

The men's team, meanwhile, are taking the scenic route onto the podium since the only thing they were able to put into the goal when playing the USA last week was one of their own players. That particular game saw the public screens in Vancouver removed for fear of riots. In fact, it transpired that there was nothing to fear; Canada went into complete denial the game had even occurred, including the reporter on that night's news. (Although this picture made me laugh a lot.)

By the time Canada were playing Germany, a cautious allusion to the previous .... thing ... occurred on the radio where the DJs speculated the serious question of whether the whole Olympics would be a disaster if Canada didn't place in hockey. Meanwhile, our lunch table at work discussed the likelihood of anyone turning up to Friday's game if Canada were knocked out. Would Vancouver simply decide the hockey was over and the players would show up to an dark and empty rink with no TV crew? It was possible. And no, in case anyone was wondering, the acquired gold in figure skating didn't quite hit the spot.

Still, the worrying was for nothing. Canada has now won the semi-finals (you can all speculate whether I wrote this before or after the end of the 3rd period) and we will discover whether it's because these bunch of stars have started working as a team (I'm going to come out and say the women's team - WAY better at this) or if the USA team are just that hot.

Either way, it seems likely that Lacuna, Inc will not be needed for every Canadian.

Sinister lighting

Me: The houses near the University look beautiful in the snow. One had lights on their trees and made me think it was still Christmas!

A-g-nother Postdoc: Yes, I've seen the houses with holiday lights still up. It makes me think the occupant has probably died.

Me: .....

A-g-nother Postdoc: In December, January; ok. But by the end of February....

Me: .... so I think "pretty", you think "festering corpses half eaten by the pet dog"?

A-g-nother Postdoc: Well, you hear stories of bodies being found and the Christmas tree is still there and all the lights....

Me: .... so ..... research going well?

*****-pack

Sunday cross-country ski trips are held at various parks around Ontario. For the majority of these, the cabin where you can rent skis, warm up and buy a hot drink is situated at the hub of the majority of the ski trails. This makes it easier to leave a packed lunch there to be devoured after any one of the routes you do during the day.

There are however, exceptions to this arrangement. Last week was one example where the cabin was a fair distance from the end of almost all the trails (due some pathetic problem involving a hulking great lake in the way) or occasionally, much longer trails exist that take many hours to complete. For this reason, the ski club recommends their members carry (and I quote) "fanny packs".

I am estimating roughly half my audience flinched and the other half were unmoved.

Why? Well ... let's just say one doesn't use the term "fanny" in the UK in this context. Normally, such items are called "bum bags" or "hip packs". I also threw any I possessed out of my wardrobe when we hit 1990.

After a rather hungry ski trip last week which resulted in me inhaling my late lunch and having indigestion on the trip back, I realised I would need one of these .... carriers. I went into town and checked out the sports shops, thinking I'd feel marginally less stupid buying something I associated with a shell suits at such a location.

Shop Assistant: "Can I help you?"

Me: "Ah yes, I'm looking for a f... um... a uh... never mind."

No. Just.... no. It's bad enough asking for pants when I'm hunting for a new pair of trousers but this is just A Stage Too Far, people. Instead, I found a small rucksack that was waterproof lined and made by the sports company called 'Tracker'. It was clearly designed for the purpose I had in mind. I wondered whether the designers had been British too.

Now it all becomes clear...

Sour milk ...

... is not a tasty delicious snack for all the family. In fact, I'm going to come right out and say it's not good.

This website has the following helpful tips on the subject:

"Most people who drink spoiled milk will immediately identify the "off" taste and spit out the milk. But young children astrophysicists who may not know better but think is doesn't matter may drink the milk [......] do not ingest it as you normally would."

I would actually go as far to suggest that you should not ingest it AT ALL, even supposing you had a surprising way of doing so. For the record, the milk being strawberry and drinking it from a straw makes NO DIFFERENCE. None. Note this.

On a related topic, I'm sure this gives me a valid reason to buy an iPad. Before this morning's .... incident .... the real reason I desired one was so I could surf the internet during talks. This was a damn good idea BAD REASON. But seriously, if you have to spend that long in the restroom, you might as well stay up-to-date with your email. It'd be great for the next time I do this.

Do picket lines have wireless?

A recent development at the university where I work is for the postdoctoral researchers to join a union. Since this happened just before I arrived, I don't know what triggered the decision but current politics suggests a few speakers had words such as "representation" scrawled on their palms. Over the last week this move has been called into question as the union dues are on the rise and the postdoc community is considering withdrawing.

Generally, I always thought unions were A. GOOD. THING. They band people together to give them a voice, can negotiate changes in unreasonable systems and ultimately force them through by legalising work strikes. But here's the problem:

Postdocs can't strike.

I mean, we can. We could all refuse to go into work tomorrow or the day after but who looses out? Even in departments unlike astrophysics which might contain large laboratories primarily run by postdocs, the people who would most suffer from the lack of work is ... the postdocs. Our fellowship positions are short, normally between 1-3 years, which gives very little time to publish enough material to secure the next job. The holy grail, that tenure-track faculty appointment, is particularly hard to get and so there is really no postdoc who could honestly stop work. They'd just take their laptops to the protest marches.

We shall stand here and do research outside your windows until you agree to our demands! Yes!

Since few have teaching duties, frankly I doubt our departments would notice. Also, since we are contract workers, any special needs can be negotiated on an individual basis before we start our positions. The union, therefore, has acted more as a money drain on our pay-cheques than any form of benefit. Finally, as transitional workers we rather hold the last card up our sleeve ...

.... we can leave.

(And the group meeting cookies will leave with me biatches.)

I.O.U.

Despite money now mainly existing as a series of computer bytes, transferring credit ratings between countries is as impossible as if all transactions were engraved on decaying manuscripts too fragile to be moved. Decaying manuscripts ... with a radioactive coating that requires them to be buried sixty feet under in their country of origin.... in a lead vault surrounded by plague-carrying rats.... and six people whose role model is Sarah Palin.

Despite my hopes that Canada might be able to look slightly south to over the border where my carefully built up credit rating was sitting, I was disappointed. Not only did they refuse to acknowledge my USA record, but they would not give me a low-limit credit card or even a debit card that worked as a visa. My proof of employment and qualifications meant nothing; perhaps they too had read the Government's plans for funding science in the next five years. I should have mentioned I had work experience in a Chinese Take-away.

Resignedly, I applied for a secured credit card, whereby I agreed for the bank to hold a sum of money from my account equal to my credit limit for the (evidently likely) case that I did not pay off the card. This credit card arrived at the bank at the end of November but, due to my bank failing at the insurmountable task of changing my phone number, I did not hear about it until they mailed me .... after I had left for a month in Europe. By the time I returned in January, I was told the card had been destroyed and I would have to re-order. This I did and two weeks later (no, they still had not managed the number change, I called them) I went down and picked up the card. Huraah! Now I can start building my credit history again. At least I could ... if I could activate my card.

"I'm sorry, the card number you have given us isn't on the system."

"....."

Did they give me a visa just to shut me up but had no intention of really letting me borrow money? Had they, perhaps, seen plans for the Government's ten year funding in Astrophysics? Maybe they discovered that I had occasionally mixed up orders at the Chinese takeaway and really there was no hope for me on the job market at all? Or was it that news of my accidental goal against my own team last hockey game (SO not my fault - the puck bounced off my skate) had reached this far and it was their way of driving me from the country in disgrace?

After a shuffle around customer service the truth eventually materialised:

"Ah, the card you have is the one that was cancelled last year."

".... the one that was sent back to you and destroyed?"

".... yes."

Apparently, my bank does have my new one, they just didn't check for the second envelope when looking on Saturday. If they cancel this one before I get down there, I shall be mad.

Skate skiing

Just when you think you have a handle on the standard pastimes of a country, something entirely bizarre and random gets presented to you at lunch as if it were as common as a cheese sandwich. In the case of the USA, that activity would be disk golf; an unholy union of frisbee, golf and basket ball in which disks are shot into metal trashcans on an 18 trashcan course. In Canada, the equivalent unnatural cross-breed is skate skiing.

Ah ha! (You might think.) I see the idea here; put on skis that look like skates and use the snow as if it were an ice rink. Well yes ... and no. The skis themselves look hardly any different from their cross-country counterparts. They are the same long length with the bindings that clip only to the toe. The difference is that a cross-country ski has some friction on its under-surface, either through a pebbled section in the centre of its length or via wax. A skate-ski, meanwhile, it totally smooth. The actual action is similar to skating, with the skier gliding from one foot to the other with the skis in a "V"-shape, often crossing at the back. The poles also play a larger role, and are longer to allow you to push down harder on them as you move.

Done correctly, skate skiing is considerably faster than cross-country and a much more aerobic exercise. Done incorrectly, and your muscles hurt like a bitch. (What?! I tried disk golf too).

In other news, I broke my weighing scales. They were glass topped and I dropped them on the bathroom floor, shattering glass all over the place. On this subject I would like to declare:

1. My swearing was impressively restrained, despite what any of my neighbours might later testify to.
2. I really did drop them and it was not that the excess of Christmas chocolatey goodness caused them to give way.
3. I am sticking to that story.

That is all.