Late Night Talk Show

Here’s another brilliant idea that could make me rich. And I have to give credit for the idea to That Guy.

As the title suggests, I would host my own late night talk show. Not sure what exactly I would discuss. (Probably something random, probably sometimes intellectual in nature.) But since when do talk show hosts know their topics long beforehand anyway?

It would have to be a filmed talk show (think Leno or Letterman), rather than a radio one, because we came up with a bunch of random visual effects/gags to use during the show. I’m not even sure how much discussion would really take place during the show.

We’d start with me, the host, lying down on a couch the whole time, talking to the guest from on my back. The guest would probably have a nice leather armchair or something. Heck, maybe they’d have a couch too. So we’d be there chatting, and rather than use pronouns like ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘you’, I’d just say their full name each time I address them. (Think a Chuck Norris joke. [Hey that gives me an idea for who’d be my first guest!]) And each time I mention their name out loud, some guy (whose whole purpose on the show is to stand behind the set with a clicker) would press the clicker. Then at the end of the show he’d show the tally.

We’d save money on lighting by just having Bryan build a fire the whole time. Bryan would literally build a bonfire before every show, and sit there keeping it roaring until after we were done. (Which I’m pretty sure is Bryan’s dream job.) Sitting in a chair to the guest’s right (I’d be on the guest’s left) would sit That Guy. And he’d be there all show just doing what he does. Which in this case is either sharpening a machete or cleaning a handgun (it would alternate each show). He’d do that the whole show, just to make the guest nervous. He’d also be wearing Das Büt on his kicking foot. This Büt would be a huge honking steel-toed mother of a shoe, and would have spikes coming out the sides. On his other foot would probably just be his own sock, or whatever footwear he normally wears.

And whenever the guest would say anything stupid, That Guy would jump up, scream “Das Büt!!!” and whomp the guest in the face. If somehow the guest dodged the blow, and tried to get away, then bars would come up around the stage and they’d be trapped until they got whomped. Heck, Bryan and I would even help pin him down so as not to waste any more time. After being whomped, the bars would drop down and we’d return to the conversation we were having. If the guest should be so foolish as to say something stupid again, we’d repeat the whole process over.

And now you know why I don’t have my own talk show. But just think of the possibilities!

-Bernier

The $30 Million-dollar Idea

So me and another guy were working today stocking food for like 7 hours. As we were stocking this food, he pointed out that just about everything for sale had something like “whole wheat”, “low fat”, “cholesterol free” and you get the idea. (I felt compelled to let him know that according to Man Law, no man is allowed to consume anything that has “fat free”, “diet”, or “light” in the name. But that’s beside the point.)

Anyways, as we were talking (that is, when he wasn’t commenting about how many hot women were in the store), I got an idea. If people are obsessed with health, what if we made a multigrain beer? Seriously. They can make beer out of wheat. The next logical step is whole wheat and perhaps multigrain. Pasta has already gone that direction. Makes sense to me that beer would follow suit. I’m sure it would taste disgusting. But most beer already does anyway.

And we were thinking that we should definitely think about being the first to make this stuff. He pointed out that people will buy the stupidest crap, especially when it comes to beer, so this should sell like crazy. I figure we only have so long to corner the market and get rich. Then some big-ticket company will come along and buy our idea for $30 mil, and we’ll be instantly rich. Oh, to dream big!

My only reservation is that there is already famines and food shortages all over the world, mostly due to ethanol, so I don’t know if it would be right to divert so much more grain to the production of beer.

So yeah. Wonder what we’ll come up with tomorrow.

-Bernier

The Most Underappreciated Weapon

Pretty much, That Guy forced me to write this entry. And since I haven’t listened to a single one of his critiques on here (which, by the way, have slowed to a stop), I figured I’d give him this one.

It came about on our “Epic May Long” trip. (Which if you haven’t seen the Facebook pictures, you should do so after you finish reading.) We were walking to the end of the peninsula, and a spontaneous stick fight broke out between the 5 of us. Wielding the “Wrath of Ra” (which was That Guy’s name for my stick of choice), I fought off every enemy stick. I was unstoppable. Then the other Matt found a rather large, blunt stick and started swinging it. I knew this would be the end of the Wrath, so I bowed out.

It was here that Scales had one of his many revelations. He realized that the Caveman Club is probably, as the entry title suggests, the most underappreciated weapon there is; certainly when it comes to melee combat. I guess it’s not much good against a gun or missile or grenade, but in a one on one duel, it can be quite formidable. Even the quickest opponent must be wary of the blunt force trauma such a weapon can dish out.

It certainly was more than a match for the Wrath of Ra. And in the end, I think it was fashioned into a giant spoon, before being inadvertently destroyed and eventually burned as firewood. But in the mean time, no one was going to question the one who held the Caveman Club. As the Geico commercials suggest, Cavemen were probably smarter than we give them credit for. They knew how to fight.

-Bernier

Stuck Spacebar

Have you ever had this problem? Let me assure that it is exceedingly frustrating. Basically I’ve had to fight with my keyboard every time I want to type something. And it’s pretty much random too. Like sometimes I can rattle off a dozen words at a time and then WHAM! Suddenly the blinking line takes off to the right and I have to struggle to get back to where I was. Sometimes I have to backspace continuously for like 15 seconds because the spacebar keeps running away from me.

And often times it will skip on me in the middle of a word, sometimes more than once in the same word. Needless to say, it’s very annoying. Writing passwords is a hassle. When spaces and letters all appear as asterisks, I have no idea if I’ve done it right, or where I might have gone wrong. I basically have to put the password in the username section (while fighting the spacebar), and cut and paste it into the password box.

It was so bad that I decided not to bother writing captions for all my “Epic May Long” photos on Facebook. I even refrained from blogging. Then I decided to suck it up and put up with it. Yesterday’s entry was written while constantly fighting an errant spacebar, and the captions took longer than usual, but I guess it’s all good.

With all of this backspacing I have now have to do, I’m wondering if that key is going to start to stick as well. Maybe that won’t be so bad. If the spacebar and backspace are both stuck, will they just cancel each other out? Probably not. I’m sure it will just multiply my frustration exponentially.

But there is some good news. This morning, my dad bought and installed a new wireless keyboard. It works beautifully. I especially like that the annoying ‘Insert’ key is safely tucked away with the F keys, not right next to the delete key. So I guess I won’t be hitting that stupid key all the time anymore. I still have a lot of backspacing to do, but that’s because of my ever-present spelling corrections I have to make. Darn speed-typing. Oh well. I’m glad to have my keyboard back.

-Bernier

Wearing A Watch

It’s kind of interesting to see how some people never wear a watch, while others always have one on. And many people I know prefer to rely on their cell phones for the time. Personally, I’ve worn one pretty much every day for the last 3 years. Possibly longer. It finally caught up with me the other day, as the indiglo failed to work, and finally the battery ceased to function at all.

I never realized just how habitually and compulsively I look at my wrist. I was always aware of the fact that I rely on my watch to know what the date, and often the day of the week, is. But since I don’t have the time (and also the date) on hand anymore (pardon the pun), it has come to my attention just how often I check the time. I’m not sure why I do that. But now every time I do, I get annoyed at myself for forgetting that my watch is dead.

Which begs the question: why am I still wearing my watch? I can’t offer a very good answer for this, only that it has become tantamount to a piece of clothing for me. I almost feel naked without it. Well, not quite, but you get the idea. Also, it helps me identify myself in pictures when I’m not sure which person is me. (That usually only happens in group shots from behind.)

Fortunately, my watch battery is getting replaced today, so my inconvenience is likely to end soon. Something else I’ve noticed, though, is that when I don’t know the time, I work longer and don’t seem to need breaks as often. I wonder why that is.

-Bernier

The Modern Miracle

Note: This is a topic on which I could go for days. For the purposes of this entry, I’ll set most political points aside, as well the depth of historical and Scriptural details, and instead give a generalized view of the situation.

It’s been in the news a fair bit leading up to today. But in case you haven’t heard, today, May 14, is the 60th anniversary of the creation of the modern state of Israel.
Foretold by the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, in chapters 36 and 37 of the book that bears his name, Israel has re-emerged as a nation on the earth, and Jews have once again returned to their ancient homeland in droves.

On May 14, 1948, out of the ashes of the Holocaust, in accordance with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and United Nations partition plan of 1947, the leaders of what was to become the re-born State announced the creation of the State of Israel. Immediately afterward, the armies of 5+ neighbouring Arab nations invaded the state they rejected. When the armies of both sides signed armistices in 1949, the state of Israel became a reality, encompassing the land allotted to them by UN Resolution 181. (The Gaza Strip, West Bank, Golan Heights, and even Jerusalem itself were not in Israeli hands until 1967. But that’s a history lesson for another time.)

So why is this a “modern miracle”? Because it never should’ve happened, and I mean that in a positive way. A people group scattered from their homeland for 1900 years, with no real unity in form of religious practices, language, culture, etc, should certainly disappear into history. But in spite of all this, the Jews have retained their identity as a people over the centuries. Their bond with their ancient homeland could not be replaced no matter where they went. Even after facing pogroms, Holocaust, dhimmitude, assimilation, Inquisition, and civil war, they are still around.

This could never have been possible without the fact that God is with them. They are God’s chosen people; the apple of his eye, if you will. The Bible is full of references to that fact; and full of promises He has made to them. He promised to return to them their Land. He made good on that promise.

For this reason, I have utmost confidence that they will survive the current rocket attacks from Hamas, the threats from Syria, and the genocidal intentions of Iran. It is also why I have pledged my unswerving loyalty to them. Both as a people, and as a nation. That is not to say that I believe they are right in everything they do. I believe they are as fallible as anyone else, and that they make foolish and wrong choices sometimes. But I know that my God has chosen them as His own. So I can do no less.

-Bernier

Downloading Music

Here’s something that I find interesting: there’s so many different views on whether or not someone should download music off the internet. Part of me wonders if this is a choice everyone should make for themselves, or if there is one absolute right answer to this issue. I’m not going to try to answer that question in this entry, rather state what my approach to it, and the reasons for my choice.

I download music regularly. I use the iTunes Music Store quite often. A couple years ago I used LimeWire. I’ve also used Napster and Puretracks. By far, the easiest program to use was LimeWire. The simple reason for this was that each track could be searched for, with various sizes, types, and performances showing up at the end. And it would be all free of charge. This was great for me, as there was tons of music that I liked, but couldn’t find or afford to buy CD’s for.

But every time I downloaded a song this way, I always questioned whether or not it was legal to do so. I’d heard opinions for both sides of that argument, but I couldn’t be certain one way or another. Finally, my conscience gave me enough of a hard time that I got rid of the program, as well as all the files I had downloaded from it. Drastic, I suppose. But it was the only way to clear my conscience. I was glad I did it.

This brought me back to the problem of not listening to all the music I liked. I still had an extensive library (my parents have hundreds of CDs), but new songs coming out could only be heard on the radio. I started to pay for downloads using Puretracks, and an amazing deal with Napster. (Unlimited downloads for 3 months, at only $39.95. It worked out to 11¢ per song. Not bad at all.) Some time after my Napster subscription expired, I got an iPod. I started using iTunes for playing music, but when I tried to load my Napster tracks into the program, I found they were locked out of every player except Napster itself. This was a bummer. I decided that for music I had already paid for, it would be ok for me to download it off LimeWire, so I re-installed the program. Of course, 443 songs would be far too time-consuming, so I chose “only” 100 or so that I would download as unprotected mp3’s for iPod use.

Now I use the iTunes Store. And that is what I intend to continue doing. And now for the why behind the what.

I’ve heard people tell me that downloading music for free off the internet is illegal in the States, but perfectly legal in Canada. I’ve never bothered to research that for myself, but in a sense, I don’t really care. I, myself, am not comfortable downloading media off the internet for free without specific permission from the one it belongs to. I know that someone has spent months of time, effort, and money into producing something a mere 4 minutes long, and that they deserve to be paid for their work, if someone is willing to listen to it. Therefore, I determine it to be a matter of conscience, rather than a matter of legality, on which I base my decision for this issue.

I’ve been told by more than one person that in Canada, all blank media (like CD’s) have an added cost to them, which goes to the artists and record companies who produce media. This is done on the assumption that the blank media will hold freely-downloaded files, for which the artist will not receive due compensation. Again, I have not bothered to research this for myself, so I can’t verify the claim. In my opinion, whatever tariff they may add to blank media cannot possibly hope to keep pace with the amount of free material that the media can/will hold. Let’s say someone puts 20 free songs onto a CD. At 99¢ a song (the typical price in online stores), that’s just short of $20. There is no way in the world that a pile of blank CD’s costs an extra $20 when purchased. And even if it does, that’s only one CD being used. If someone were to do that with the whole pile, the artist is losing out big time! All that to say, I don’t think the added cost/tax/tariff would be sufficient to offset the amount of freely-downloaded material that is consumed, so I don’t see that as justification for my right to download at no charge.

Then there’s the argument that artist and record companies are already stupid rich, so they aren’t going to be hurt by not getting paid for a few of their songs. Not only is that not a good reason for doing wrong – if it is wrong – but while that’s probably true for established artists, new up-and-comers are not stupid rich, and they can will have to struggle to counter the amount of their new hits that they aren’t getting paid for. That’s hardly fair to them.

So how serious do I take this stand? Well according to my “Purchased” playlist in my iTunes, I have purchased 111 media files from the iTunes Store. A few of these files were free offers from the Store, so let’s just use the round number of 100. I’ve downloaded 17 music videos, each costing about $2.29. That’s 39 bucks. I’ve also downloaded 5 full-length movies, each at $9.99. That’s another 50 bucks. I’ve also spent probably 10 bucks on iPod games. When it comes to music tracks, my math would indicate 78 songs, though without rounding it’s probably over 80, so we’ll use 80 as a round number. Those run for 99¢ each. That works out to about 79 dollars and change.
Now before iTunes, I spent the aforementioned $40 on Napster. I also remember buying probably 6 individual Puretracks cards worth $10 each. Now let’s crunch some numbers.

Six Puretracks cards at $10 each = $60
One Napster card at $40 = $40
About 80+ songs off iTunes = $79
Five movies off iTunes = $50
Seventeen music videos off iTunes = $39

By my calculations, I have spent $268 on media I could’ve downloaded for free, but chose not to. That’s enough for me to treat 29 friends to wings at the Pony Corral tomorrow. That’s how seriously I take my position.

I actually never calculated this amount before. It’s higher than I thought it would be. Maybe I should cut back. Once again, I don’t know if there is a definitive, absolute right and wrong to this issue. But now you know where I stand, and why. Have a good week!

-Bernier

Winging It

Improvisation. Something everyone knows how to do. Some are better at it than others, but everyone is capable of it. After all, who goes through daily life knowing exactly what is going to happen, when, and what they must do in preparation for that? People improvise when they have a conversation with someone else. They improvise when they make moment-by-moment driving decisions. Whether people are aware of it or not, they are improvising all the time. It’s a constant thing.

And then there is improvising during a presentation. That is a whole different matter. Case in point: today I gave a 3-minute “speech” at the Global Focus Luncheon at church after the service. This wasn’t the first time I’d done that. I also gave a short (probably 1 minute long) speech last August when I came home from Tadoule Lake. This was a little different because, while there were 3 of us presenting, each one was right on the spot for their whole talk. Daunting perhaps, but I’ve done some performing in my day, so I figured I’d be alright.

It was part laziness, part inability to focus yesterday, and part confidence in my experience (both in Mexico and in speaking), that contributed to my choice to not write down my speech beforehand. I was a little nervous about that choice. After all, all the speeches I’ve ever done in the last few years (except for the short Tadoule Lake talk), have been written out entirely beforehand, and have been with me up on stage. So this was definitely pushing the limits of my comfort zone.

It was definitely a different experience, not knowing exactly what I was going to say before I said it. I basically just thought through the main points beforehand, and trusted my memory and my ability to think of my feet to fill in the details. I think it was a good decision. It made for some personal growth, I suppose.

And if you’re wondering, the speech went well. I spoke clearly, kept my head up, through in a touch of humor, and didn’t really lose my train of thought ever. It certainly was never awkward, thankfully. I think I was sweating a bit though. And wearing that blazing green Mexico shirt, it may have started to show a bit. But nobody commented on it, and nobody looked at me weird (or at least, I didn’t notice if they did). Thank goodness. Another thing I realized is that when your speech is unscripted, you can use what other people said right before you and run with it in your own speech. I think that’s pretty cool.

Finally, when the speech is unscripted, the talk feels more like telling a story, or having a conversation, than giving a speech. I think that makes it a little more personal or authentic. And that’s always cool. That’s not to say that written speeches don’t hit the point home. (Mary-Beth did a fabulous job with everything written down.) Lord knows I’ve used that tactic many times.

So yeah. That’s pretty much what I learned about winging it through today’s experience. It was pretty cool.

-Bernier

Biofuels

A lot has been made about trying to reduce carbon emissions and pollution by changing from gas and oil to “biofuels”. I support this effort. It’s good to be cleaner on the environment and such. And if we can find an alternative to crude oil to run our lives, we’ll all be in a better place. But there’s a dark side to this particular avenue of what I like to refer to as “Green-ism”. And it’s a very dark shade of green indeed.

The news is starting to fill up with reports of food shortages, food riots, rising food prices, and other humanitarian concerns all over the world.* This could be due to a number of things. Perhaps drought, pollution, urban sprawl, salinization, bugs, and other factors are hitting particularly hard right now. Yes, perhaps. I would venture to suggest there is something else to blame, however. And if you read the title of this entry, you’ve probably assumed I’m talking about biofuels.

Now I’m no scientist, engineer, chemist, or agriculturalist, so the science behind it all I’m unfamiliar with. Basically, biofuels are made using organic, carbon-based material. Plants and animals (including humans), are examples of such material. As far as I know, biofuels are typically made from either recycled French fry grease, or more commonly from staple foods like corn and rice. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.

Now as biofuels are becoming more popular, they require more staple food to be used to make them. Steadily, more and more food is being used to fuel cars instead of stomachs. This can only go so far. Ultimately, of course, you can live without corn-engineered fuel, but not without the corn itself. This reality doesn’t mean a whole lot to us in North America. But in countries that are struggling to feed themselves (and in many cases, are dependent on us for sustenance), this situation is devastating!

A short while ago, World Vision, a worldwide Christian relief charity, announced that they will not be able to feed 1.5 of the 7.5 million people they fed last year.** A number of factors contributed to this, including the fact that an increasing amount of corn is being used to grow ethanol, probably the most common biofuel. This is a tragic statistic. When you’d like to help all you did last year and more, suddenly you lose 1/5 from the previous year. I imagine it must be very demoralizing for World Vision.

Also recently, the United States announced they could not offer as much foreign aid to starving countries as they could in previous years.*** This would be due to the combined effects of rising food prices (for which biofuels are partly to blame), and the fact that there just isn't as much food to go around (for which biofuels are LARGELY to blame).

Another dark side effect of biofuels is one of the great ironies of Green-ism. Biofuels produce more carbon dioxide than they end up saving. Not in terms of vehicle exhaust, of course, but in how they are grown. The land that needs to be cleared, tilled, and harvested, holds a great amount of CO2 in the soil. When this is released from the soil, the quantities that enter the atmosphere are greater than the quantities released from the burning of gas and oil. So while they are meant to reduce emissions, they end up making a bad problem even worse.****

And now this article from the BBC, released just today. It seems that even the United Nonsense is catching on here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7381392.stm

Now THAT'S what I call an inconvenient truth!!!

-Bernier

*http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23599517-28737,00.html?from=public_rss
**http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/23/worldvision-cut.html?ref=rss
***http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/world/29food.html
****http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080209/biofuel_crops_ 080209/20080209