Can a 9th century German ghost understand current English?

It's a ghoulish time this halloween, little children are all dressed up as super heros and princesses. Little adults are dressed up as bums and hookers. It's amazing how our hopes in life dive so very far in so little time.

And on TV there is a veritable avalanche of programs with people looking for ghosts and trying to get them on film or audio tape. These TV programs typically involve a group of people - some psychics, some TV show hosts, some skeptics - asking "If there's any ghost that wants to talk to us please let your presence be known." There is no real rationale behind why any ghost would want to respond to these odd people who are doing a one-time visit to disturb the dead. I'm sure they don't get any commercial funding in the afterlife for making appearances on TV programs. But it is nice to see the different castles and areas of the world, and it is fun to watch the people freak themselves out in dark, scary places.

The one thing I'm not so sure about is, do any of these ghosts understand current English? Have they been doing community-centre learning programs to learn modern English? I've just seen a TV program stalking a ghost from the 9th Century AD - a German ghost. All the people were speaking modern English. One of the psychics had a strong Scottish accent. Oddly enough, they didn't get any evidence of the ghost.

Are there many ghosts of babel fish - the ultimate universal translator that sticks in your ear and translates everything for you - and does each human ghost get one when they agree to haunt a place? If not... where do they learn their English so they can respond to the TV investigators?

Who thought self-flushing toilets on boats was a good idea?

The thing about a boat is, it travels on water. The thing about water is, it moves. Whey you are walking around on a boat - even a very large BC Ferries boat - you are occasionally tipped and rolled to the side. Even when you are sitting down - you are occasionally rolled to the side.

The thing about self-flushing toilets is, they flush on their own. The thing about toilets flushing on their own is, they do it when they sense movement off the toilet.

If you put these two ideas together... you get self-flushing toilets doing their flushing whenever a big wave moves the person sitting on the toilet to the side.

Who thought this was a good idea? I remain confused on this one.

Why are there so many SORRY busses?

In Vancouver we have a lot of busses. They are typically stuffed with people and are a very useful, if crowded, way to get around the city. But why is the most prominent feature of these busses the SORRY message that shows when the bus is not in service?

When a bus is in service the number and name of the route is displayed on the electronic sign on the top of the front window. This is always done in mixed upper and lower case letters, so it's not an obtrusive sign - just a very useful one.

Sometimes when there is a sports game on, like a hockey game, the sign occasionally flashes Go Team Go. The message goes back to the number and name of the route fairly quickly, so the cheer does not interrupt or confuse potential riders that much.

Typing anything in all capital letters is considered rude. It's called "shouting" at your readers. It's almost as bad as using all lower case letters and actually expecting people to go through the pain of trying to read what you didn't put enough effort into writing to properly capitalize. Life is too short to bother with text written in all lower case and too stressful already without having text shout at you.

So the busses that are not in service shout the fact out. You can't miss these shouting busses, even if you weren't waiting for one. And if you were waiting for one, it's rather disheartening to be passed by so many screaming SORRY ones! It's nice to know when a bus is not in service, but do they have to be so noisy about it?

Where should I put this spoon?

Now, before I get too many suggestions for anatomically questionable places to put a spoon, let me give some background on where this question came from. I was on a BC Ferry last weekend, and wanted some yogurt to munch, so I asked my spouse to get some while I watched our stuff. He returned with some yummy yogurt and a spoon - not just a disposable plastic spoon, a real spoon that you put in a dishwasher and use again. Which was great for the eating of the yogurt, but then the question came up: Where should I put this spoon so that someone will take it to the dishwasher, wash it, and put it out to be used again?

This type of question is popping up more often these days. With the idea of reuse really hitting the mainstream, you can often find the more environmentally responsible options. When I go to Starbucks I typically ask for my coffee "for here" which gets me a real live ceramic cup to drink it from. This is wonderful, it makes the drinking more enjoyable, guilt free, and I think the coffee actually tastes better in a ceramic mug too. But then where do you put the empty cup? I do hate leaving debris on the table when I leave - that being akin to littering - but I don't see an easy option of where to put the cup.

It's not as bad as a story I heard from a friend who was on a beach in Portugal with families with babies all around. One mother actually changed her child's diaper, put the dirty diaper on the sand, and then packed everything else up and made to leave. The diaper was still on the sandy beach, so my friend encouraged her to pick up the diaper so it wouldn't still be there when she visited the beach the next time. The mother was pissed-off at the suggestion, but the father had enough sense to look embarrassed and picked up the diaper before leaving. So how often did the mother leave dirty diapers anywhere she happened to be sitting at the time? The poor small human child probably had its excrement dumped freely all over Portugal. The karma of the infant was probably damaged to a point where it would take years to recover. The planet would be cleaner and more sanitary without that child. What was it's mother thinking?

So my spouse did manage to find the right place to put the dirty spoon before we got off the Ferry, but it did take a bit of hunting. And I am still leaving the Starbucks mugs on the tables, but the people working there are pretty good at clearing the tables. Maybe the child will grow up to be a doctor and help mankind. Hopefully the "where should I put this" question will be an easier one to answer as more environmentally sound practices become common place.

Isn't it nice dealing with people who have pride in their work?

I had to go have blood taken for tests today and it's always something I hate doing because people have great difficulty finding my veins. I typically have a pink tinge to my skin, but my body's attitude is generally: "Yes, there is blood in here. No, you can't have any of it." So when I find someone who can find the vein on the first shot without leaving a huge bruise, I'm very relieved. I'm sure I will never see them at the same lab again, it's only the ones who have problems who seem to stick around in the same job for extended periods of time, but I take my happiness when I can.

Today I actually had a lab technician who found the vein without a problem! Celebrations began almost immediately. I asked if she thought they would ever get one of the machines that use blue light to light up veins in people to make the job easier. She said she expected hospitals could make good use of those, but in the drop-in labs they don't really need it "Because we're all so good!"

Wow, actual pride in her work! That is so rare, and so incredibly welcome! Someone who does her job well, and takes pride in doing it well. Life is good.

Why did the pigeon cross the road?

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

The question I have is: Why are those pigeons on the road in the middle of traffic? And if they are crossing the road, why are they moving in odd circles rather than going from one side to the other? And if they are pigeons - which they are - why are they walking instead of flying across the road?

These are the pigeons who usually sit on the power lines that cross the road at the corner just up the hill from us. They are the ones that are known to aim their droppings so that they hit as many people as possible - we have washed off plenty. So they don't seem to be dumb birds.

The weather may have changed rather drastically at the beginning October here in the rain forest (oh yeah, rain forest, I remember that, it was such a sunny summer I almost forgot) but the pigeons knew about this. They've been through this before, the rain comes, it gets cooler, been here, done that. It's fall, it's now going to rain until March.

But the pigeons seem to have, on mass, lost their common bird sense about not walking across roads and into traffic. As we drive onto the ramp down to our parking lot, 3 pigeons decide to walk right under the car! We are going at a crawl and hoping the birds get out of the way of the tires, but why are they walking under the car instead of flying away? A quick look back confirms that no one was hit, but that was a tense drive for us! Are the pigeons messing with our minds?

Has mother nature gotten bored with the using obvious climate changes to wake us up to the peril that faces us and she's now making the birds do wacky things to get us to pay attention? Or have the pigeons upped their consciousness to a point where all of the pigeons have been watching us long enough to get a few ideas on how to make the monkeys freak out?

I don't think it's a random occurrence, I think the pigeons are playing with our minds. Why did the pigeon cross the road? To play with our minds!

Is using a clock as a calculator odd?

This week my volunteer work helping in the offices of the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival included the task of adding up hours. This is because all volunteers can request a free ticket, and these tickets are given out in a lottery of all tickets available, but the volunteer must work at least 12 hours to be eligible to request a ticket.

So the festival needs to know who is working enough time to get a ticket. So I was adding up everyone's scheduled hours. I was using a clock and a piece of paper to scribble on to do the math. The next volunteer who came in for the afternoon shift thought that was very odd. She said there was a calculator in the desk drawer. I find those annoying when adding up time.

So is it odd to use the clock as a calculator? As a visual key it's very useful to count the hours from 9:15 to 11:30 on the clock face (2 1/4), and count 6:30 to 9:45 on the clock face (3 1/4). It's kind of like an abacus. It doesn't really help with the fraction math, and I admit it's been years since I've added 3/4 + 3/4 + 1/2 and the like, but it was a good mental work out.

I admit it's close to using your fingers to do addition, but I find it very useful.

I wondered if other people do the same as I do. So I did some googling. There are abacus and clock combination apparatus that you can buy. Actually, many of them. So I think this is a valid and popular way to add up time. I guess it's not that odd. Google is a very comforting tool for making life make sense.