Our city currently has a water use ban in place- no watering of lawns or flowers, no car washing, and so forth. We’ve had a dry few months and water levels are low, so it’s a move that makes a lot of sense, even if it means that my opium poppies pansies are dying and my car looks like it belongs in a Jeep commercial. But not everybody likes to abide by the ban- I’ve seen more than one resident on my street whipping out their hoses when they shouldn’t be. Health and security of the communal water supply be damned, they’re determined to have a green lawn and a clean driveway.

What’s the appropriate reaction in these type situations? Do you turn a blind eye to their actions and leave it to somebody else to play the role of McGruff the Crime Dog? Maybe strike up a neighbourly conversation and casually mention that you think they’re worse than Hitler? Do you take a more confrontational approach and make grandiose threats? Or do you call up city inspectors to rat out your neighbour and let the long arm of the law lay the smack down, and begin laughing uncontrollably when the SWAT team shows up?

If I know the offender and am on good terms with him or her, I might mention it in a joking way and hope that they get the message. But if the water hogger is a stranger or enemy / frenemy, my approach is most likely to be a neat little variant of the first option- not actually doing anything, but glaring as I drive past and muttering things that make me feel superior. I’ll admit that on one occasion a few winters back, I called in a complaint about a neighbour who was regularly shoveling snow into the street and interfering with traffic, but only after I tried other methods before escalating it to that level.

So, what do you do with bad boy neighbours? Or are you a bad boy neighbour yourself?

Image by pescatello.

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Could you survive without your cellphone?

If you had asked me this one year ago, I would have answered with a resounding “No!”. My addiction to mobile technology ran deep. I was a relatively early adopter of cellphone technology- my first phone was a odd little Fujitsu model with mediocre reception, a ridiculously short battery life, and a fake dial tone when you flipped it open. Long before texting, long before MY5, I had a bulky, static-y cellphone that made me feel like Zack Morris and look like a drug dealer.

It took about ten years before I made the leap to my first true smart phone, a fancy little work-issued Blackberry that ensured I was plugged in and available any time, day or night. It was love at first buzz- I could keep on top of work and stay in touch even when I was away from my desk, and quickly became a master at BrickBreaker. While some people feel enslaved by the Blackberry, my initial feelings were those of freedom- I didn’t have to rush home from a movie or a box social to check my email, I was always in the loop and didn’t have that heavy feeling in my chest every time I sat down at my computer after an absence, wondering what disaster was waiting for me. Call it Stockholm Syndrome if you like, but I felt a noticeable drop in my stress levels as long as my little buddy was chained to my belt.

But then the unthinkable happened- I found myself without a phone. When I changed employers last January, my Blackberry didn’t follow me and I was too cheap/frugal to pay for one myself. I felt like a 2 year old who had just had his beloved pacifier ripped from his mouth. What if someone had a question for me outside of regular business hours? What if the boss needed me while I was at an outside meeting? How could I check the market in the back of a taxi? What if my wife needed me to pick up milk on the way home? You can’t have cereal without milk- would I never have a healthy breakfast again?!?

Much to my surprise, the loss of 24 hour connectedness didn’t result in a series of work disasters and personal catastrophes. With the exception of once buying tomatoes at the market when we already had a bunch at home (and I couldn’t call home to check), things continued pretty much as normal. I had always found my Blackberry to be a bit of a stress reliever, as I stopped worrying about what I may be missing when I was away from a computer for more than 6 minutes. I quickly came to realize that it hadn’t actually been relieving stress at all- it was just a way of masking it. I had been incapable of leaving the office at the office, but my Blackberry served a convenient coping mechanism. It was a crutch that allowed me to carry on like a real human boy without having to find effective and constructive ways of dealing with my lawyerliness. A junkie who wears long sleeve shirts to hide his track marks is still a junkie. Being Blackberry-free quickly forced me to address the underlying and problem and find real ways of dealing with stress, like relaxing walks, yoga, and binge eating.

There was one curious side effect to my cold turkey cellphone recovery. Occasionally, while sitting at the dinner table or enjoying a movie, I would feel that familiar tingle on my hip, those two gentle prods that had become a part of my physiology. Like Pavlov’s dog, I would instinctively reach for my hip to find… nothing. I suppose it was like a much kinder, gentler version of phantom limb syndrome- I call it Phantom Blackberry Disorder, or PBD. Thankfully, my PBD more or less disappeared after 3 months, but every now and then I’ll still feel a little twinge on my belt and let out a nostalgic sigh. But perhaps the biggest adjustment has been to losing immediate access to the boundless knowledge of the internet. Like so many others, I had become accustomed to turning to Google or Wikipedia to answer every query and settle every dispute. With my Blackberry gone, I can no longer avail of the collective wisdom of cyberspace. But I’ve found a way to adjust- now, instead of reaching out for Google when somebody wants to know something, I just do what I had done for years prior to internet-in-your-pants- I make something up and say it with enough confidence that nobody will question me. What’s the capital of El Salvador? Why it’s St. Mangoes, of course. How many feet in a furlong? 800. Is Ann Coulter actually a robot? Of course she is. It’s nice to return to a world where the winner of an argument is not determined by “facts”, but by who can most confidently argue that which he knows nothing about. It’s like the whole world is a courtroom!

Image by Cyndie@smilebig!

• October Goal Updates and New Hopes for November I started October by foolishly posting my goals for last month for the whole world to see. Let's see how I did: Financial Goals Pay down at least $2,000 on my student debt. - SUCCESS! $2,350, to be precise. Research and purchase shares in at least one BRIC company.......
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By The Numbers:
6: Number of “Where are you? Hope you’re alright” emails received
1: Number of “Your (sic) blog sucks. Its good you blogs just like you quit everything else” emails (Thanks, Mom!)
1.2: Increase, in percent, in RSS feed subscribers during my break from blogging
0.8: Decrease, in percent, in RSS feed subscribers in the preceding 2 months
5: number of requests for guest posts received during my my break from blogging
2: number of requests for guest posts received during the preceding 8 months
1: Number of visitors (according to Google Analytics) who reached my site through the search terms “sort facebook friends by bra size”
2: Number of visitors (according to Google Analytics) who reached my site through the search terms “mouth hooker”

Conclusions:
1. I really miss writing here, and I especially miss interacting with those of you who leave comments and send me emails. Except for the “your blog sucks” guy. That was harsh.
2. People seem to like my blog better when I just keep quiet and look pretty instead of posting stuff. The numbers don’t lie.
3. My upcoming post on sorting Facebook mouth hookers by bra size is going to bring in a tonne of search engine traffic!

There you have it. I’m back, nerds!

• The Key to Success = Neil Young (or, Why You Need a Rival) Most people know the importance of having mentors and role models in business, particularly for those at an early stage of their career. While I don't dispute that such people are important, sometimes its even more important to have the exact opposite- a rival, an antagonist, or even a......
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Our TV viewing habits are heavily shaped by our PVR. There are only two shows that we currently regularly watch “live”, namely The Office and 30 Rock. Aside from these shows, we’ve got a range of favourites that we record for viewing when we get the chance, like any new Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU episodes. Darling wife likes to record Jon and Kate Plus 8, although I let her watch those ones solo- if I wanted to hear screaming kids for a half an hour, I’d go to the playroom at McDonald’s. At least then I could drown the pain in a cheeseburger.

Since December, I’ve been keeping tabs on how much we actually use our cable subscription. The result? We watch live TV even less than I had expected. Even I was surprised by the results:

Live TV 6.5%
Recorded TV 44.2%
DVD 1.1%
Media Center Content* 48.2%
*includes downloaded content, ripped DVDs, and streaming online video

For those who like a good pie chart (and really- who doesn’t?), here are my results in visual form:

Based on this data, it seems that cable TV (both live and recorded) accounts for 50.2% of my TV viewing, and that probably justifies the $34 a month. But it’s not that simple- most (if not all) of those shows that are being pre-recorded could also be easily obtained either from network websites or as dirty, dirty downloads. This way of viewing shows- classified in the chart as Media Center Content- already makes up 48.2% of my viewing. It would take virtually no effort to bump that percentage up to 92.4%. If I decided to make that move, would it still be worth paying $34 per month for just 6.5% of my TV trance time, especially when I can easily get the shows I usually watch live if I’m willing to wait just a few extra hours? Almost certainly not. Am I willing to make this move to save $34 a month? I’m not sure.

At the risk of getting taken out by an industry anti-piracy sniper, I’ll admit that a good portion of my “Media Center Content” is legally dubious. While it includes watching fully legal clips through network websites, it also includes a number of TV series downloaded through BitTorrent and streaming video from websites that required me to hop the geofence to gain access, not to mention DVDs that I own legally but have ripped to my hard drive. Similarly, I know full well that every show I record on my PVR is a copyright infringement, regardless of how common and accepted this technology has become. My rough estimate would be that 70% of my current TV viewing involves content that infringes copyright in some manner.

The problem is that cutting cable would be an admission of what I already know- that much of my entertainment comes from less than legal sources. My guilt is somehow appeased by paying money to someone- anyone!- for my TV pleasures, and it allows me to turn a blind eye to all the infringing content that I enjoy. Perhaps it’s that my Catholic upbringing taught me that purchasing an indulgence or holy candle from the nuns could secure the absolution of my venial sins. I know it’s not very logical (and, as a result, this comparison is likely to equally offend both my Catholic and Vulcan readers), but as long as I keep paying for cable I don’t feel so bad about all the shows I didn’t pay for.

I’m sure many readers are tut-tutting my admissions, and perhaps rightfully so. But I’m also fairly certain that a significant portion of those reading this are in the same boat as I am- they are increasingly looking to legally questionable distribution channels for their entertainment, and they find that existing copyright laws are so out of step with current technologies and trends as to be meaningless. When copyright laws turn seemingly innocuous activities into criminal behavior, their legitimacy gets called into question and our inhibitions about continuing to violate intellectual property rights are greatly reduced. The greatest threat to intellectual property rights comes not from emerging technologies, but from the inefficiency and lack of moral standing that results when laws fail to adapt to a changing society.

And now for the real kicker- as faithful readers will know, I make a living protecting intellectual property. I respect those who create content, and I’m a content creator myself. I know how it feels to have your works ripped off, and when there are comparable legal options available (such as iTunes for music downloads) I’ll gladly pay for downloads. But I’m also frustrated and disillusioned with a system that pushes people towards infringement by failing to adapt and evolve.

Will I keep paying for cable TV? I’m not sure. The $450 a year I would save would certainly find use elsewhere, and I recognize that whether I’m paying it or not I’m still committing all sorts of copyright no-nos. Even so, pulling the plug feels like I’m resigning myself to the dark side, and I’m not sure that I’m prepared to take that step. Or at least not yet.

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In the early 1970’s, Neil Young wasn’t a very popular man in the southern United States. Two of his most popular songs, Southern Man and Alabama, were very critical of race relations and politics in the South, and of Southerners in general. You can imagine that a hippy Canadian sticking his nose in the business of the proud South didn’t exactly go over too well, and the response was predictably harsh.

However, for southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd- a group of sons of the South- Young’s negative lyrics were just the push that was needed to move them from popular performers to rock legends. In response to Young’s songs,Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote what would soon become a classic rock anthem, the timeless Sweet Home Alabama. It would prove to be their biggest hit ever, and to this day is one of their defining tracks. Without someone to rally against, Lynyrd Skynyrd may have never been pushed to do some of their greatest work, and sports fans the world over would have been denied the sweet melodies of drunken Crimson Tide fans.

Mentors are important, but encouragement and hugs will only get you so far. At some point, you need someone who will force you out of your comfort zone and challenge you, someone who will kick your ass and force you to act. Without Dr. Octopus,Spiderman is just a creepy guy in spandex; without the Borg, Captain Picard is just an astronaut. Your figurative Neil Young probably won’t actually be Neil Young- it may be a coworker, a competitor, or even the boss who has never been convinced that you’ve got what it takes. Your rival doesn’t need to be a hated enemy, either; Neil Young andLynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant were actually on quite good terms, and Young has even performed Sweet Home Alabama for live audiences. But regardless of who it is, you need the motivation that can only come from being forced to perform at your best and prove the naysayers wrong.

This is tough for me because I’m a pretty non-competitive person in most respects. Even when it comes to sports, I’m usually the most laid back guy on the team, just looking to have fun and not make a fool of myself. Even so, some of my best moments have come about when I was forced into acting, or when I really felt like I had something to prove.

Who plays Neil Young to your Lynyrd Skynyrd? What motivates you to exceed expectations?

Photo by yle.fi/pop

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