"You'll see the good in everyone"

“You'll see the good in everyone”
-- Sloan



Right now I sit on a flight from St. Marteen to Charlotte, en route to finding my way back home after a fantastic Caribbean adventure, where I was apparently too busy having fun to pay any attention to this little nerdy space in my life. Here at 34,000 feet I find myself reminded of one of life's little lessons.

As I boarded my flight to leave, we taxied out on the runway, and sat there waiting for fuelling. The muffled voice of the pilot told us that there had been problems earlier in the day with the fuel truck and flights were delayed all day. He apologized for the inconvenience and asked us to be patient.

I adjusted my seat, grabbed the magazine I bought for the flight, and nervously checked my watch, I only had an hour and 15 minute lay over in Charlotte before my flight was scheduled to leave for Buffalo. “Ah well” I thought “Not much that I can do about it”.

I read a few articles, I waited.
I listened to my iPod for a while, I waited.
I cracked open a new book for a bit, I waited.
I stared out the window, I waited.
I waited, I waited.

Finally, after a solid 2 hours of waiting the fuel truck arrived and started doing its job. Upon refuelling, we appeared ready to take off. Ever the optimist, I thought that maybe, just maybe I might be able to make my flight to Buffalo if they were able to make up enough time and there were some delays. Then, I heard something that made my jaw drop.

“Ladies and gentlemen” the captain muffled over the speakers, “While we have finally refuelled, there are some passengers who are demanding to get off the aircraft, and in order to accommodate them, we need to taxi back over to the terminal and unload them.”

Yes, you read that one right, after two hours of waiting, people decided at the last possible moment that they were going to get off of the plane.

Needless to say a chorus of “boo”'s, “Oh my God”'s, and “What the hell?”'s followed.

As the plane got back, a couple, perhaps in their 50s got up, and began collecting their belongings. The remaining passengers all turned towards these two, and mustered up every ounce of glowering that we could. As they finished collecting their things, a round of applause broke out. I really never thought that it was possible to clap with biting sarcasm, but now I know better.

After the people got off the air, I heard the now very familiar voice of the captain say “We can't believe this any more than you can, and unfortunately according to safety regulations we have to get these bastards luggage off of the aircraft.”

Yeah, the captain said “bastards” over the intercom, that almost made it worth it to me.

We waiting for another half an hour or so to find the luggage of these people before finally taking off, thus making it seem impossible for me to get to Buffalo, and therefore home, on time.

Now in my 25 years on this planet, I have seen, and done some pretty selfish things, but this really has to rank up there with most despicably low in my mind. I understand being angry about the delay, and anxious about the possibility of missing a connecting flight, but there really is no excuse for that sort of behaviour. They made every passenger even more delayed on their trip, and also gave the flight crew and even longer day, and they really don't deserve it.

So while the Bible, and a great band tell us to find “the good in everyone”, there are situations like this when I remember one of the most important lessons I have ever learned in my life, some people really are just assholes.

Until next time,

G

Holiday Leave

I'm heading to my dad's today to begin the Christmas celebrations (mental note: must finish my shopping...), so I will probably not be posting again until I'm down in the Caribbean in a week or so...yeah it's a tough life.

Whatever you're celebrating this time of the year, I hope that it's a great one! This certainly has been an interesting year for me, and I'm glad that I have this blog to look back on as a sort of a public and nerdy diary. Hopefully, you've all enjoyed following me along this past year and a bit.

To tide you over in your constant search for Glenergy, here is a video of one of the funniest things that I've seen in a very long time.

Brilliant, eh?

Until next time,

G

Candidacy Chaos

We reflect more on the year that was by looking at the story of a comedian, a fundamentalist, a self-proclaimed martyr, a retired soldier, grassroots campaigns, and some audacious hope.



This year holds some very exciting promise. After putting up with a scary, war-mongering, constitution-defying, oil-greedy establishment south of the border, there is finally a chance for it to change.

While the election is still a solid 11 months away, there has been no shortage of drama already in this very wide-open race. At the start of the year, it seemed destined to be a Hilary Clinton against either John McCain or Rudy Guiliani, now a short while later and that remains in question.

On the Democratic side of things, we have seen the rapid rise of Barack Obama and a fairly strong surge by John Edwards. At the end of the day though, I think that Obama really is going to be the one to pull ahead. The man is just too good of a speaker, and is putting forward too strong of a message to be ignored. There is a certain appeal in an Obama-Edwards ticket, if for nothing else than potential sitcom moments that a black guy and southerner tandem possess. Saturday Night Live would have a field day with those two running together.

Of course, joining the Democratic candidates was comedian Stephen Colbert, whose satirical campaign came very close to reality. He planned on running in his home state of South Carolina, and garnered incredible support, including the fastest growing Facebook group in history. However, the South Carolina Democratic executive council voted against his nomination. It's too bad, because him running could have made things very, very interesting.

On the Republican end there seems to be a far more open field. There is once again the man that was blatantly robbed in 2000, John McCain, who is joined by former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani, and a cast of relative new comers to the world's eye. With the "Back to Basics" message coming from Senator Ron Paul that seems to be gathering a very large grassroots movement, and the "Trust in God" message coming from Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, being the two most interesting.

Huckabee seems to be gathering all sorts of momentum, especially among the evangelical-right that helped put Bush into power. I would not at all be surprised to see a Huckabee-Obama showdown, in a truly monumental and epic presidential race. We would see the first African-American candidate, promising change, go up against a Southern Minister who has associated homosexuality with necrophilia at one point. Make no mistake about it, this is a very important year for the course of the United States, and therefore the world. We should have a lot more to reflect on in one year's time.

Until next time,

G

The Benoit Diaries

Today I look back at one of the most surreal and revolting moments of 2007, and how it brought a very powerful man into a position of having to cope with it all.


On June 25 of this past year the unthinkable happened. Chris Benoit, respected wrestler, along with his wife and seven year old son, were found dead in their Atlanta home. What was concluded was even more shocking, the deaths were a murder-suicide committed by Chris Benoit.

The WWE was faced with an immediate problem when they discovered about the deaths. First off, they had an episode of RAW that night, and apparently did not know all of the facts at the time. So, sticking with the precedent that was set with the early deaths of Owen Hart and Eddie Guerrero, they decided to turn the episode into a special "tribute" show, featuring past matches of Benoit's, and comments by current members of the roster. The next night when their episode of ECW was airing, the show opened with Vince McMahon saying that the WWE did not have all of their facts straight, and that they would never mention his name again on their shows.

I think that there are a few oddities in this story that stem from comments made by William Regal and Edge. Regal, one of the wrestlers who knew Benoit the best, only focused on Benoit's in-ring talents and made no mention to him as a person, quite an odd thing for one of his long time friends. Edge's comments, while heartfelt, raised a bit of suspicion when he said "...I don't understand things like this, and I never will" are very ominous considering the circumstance. It makes me think that he knew exactly what had happened at the time of his statement.

All sorts of speculation as to the causes of this sudden, and drastic action have taken place. Many people in the media immediately assumed that it was "Roid Rage" caused by a life of taking steroids, however, the toxicology reports disproved this theory. However, after his death his brain was examined, and it was found that the amount of damage done to his brain as a result of concussions had left his brain in a similar condition to an "85-year-old Alzheimer's patient", which could full well have led to a severe case of dementia and depression on Benoit's part.

No matter why the tragedies occurred, the WWE has been left in a very tough position. They have recalled Chris Benoit's DVD, and have slowly removed any references to him from their website and other public materials. This has also lead to the WWE delaying the release of some other DVDs, for example, they were going to release a Summerslam anthology box set, with every Summerslam on DVD for the first time ever. However, they were uncertain with what to do with Benoit's matches, especially his main event title defense against Randy Orton in 2004. Also, they were originally going to release a Steve Austin retrospective DVD in November, but it was set to feature one of Austin's excellent matches with Benoit from the spring of 2001. The WWE decided that it would not erase any of his matches on these box sets, but would not feature them on any other wrestlers DVDs.

I am not certain how I feel about the WWE attempting to re-write its own history like this. On one hand, Benoit did some terrible, inexcusable actions, but on the other hand, he has a certain place in the companies history and his actions in the past should not be ignored for his future sins. It would be akin to Germany re-writing their political history and omitting the years 1939-1945, sure it is six years that they would rather forget, but they still happened. I do commend the company for including the matches from Summerslam, as it would have been very awkward to get around some of them.

A few days after the event, I took a break from my summer sabbatical to write my thoughts on what was occurring. In preparing to write this post, I re-read it, and to be honest, I don't think that I have answered my questions on this event in the past six months. I still struggle with my memories of Benoit as a performer (which are good) with my thoughts of him as a person now (which are, obviously, not so good). I still don't know the right answer.

I still haven't watched my Chris Benoit DVD, but I feel that I will again someday, I'm not sure when, and I'm not sure how I'll feel when I watch it. But I know that I need to watch it, for closure if nothing else.

Until next time,

G

The Attack of the Green Menace

I continue to look back at all that was in 2007 by examining a former vice-president, a catchy pop song and impending doom.



Sure, An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006, but its message lingered well into 2007. We are in a lot of trouble unless we do something soon. While Gore's message was hardly a new one, scientists have been talking about it for years, something about hearing it from Al Gore seemed to make it click. I'm not sure if it was the fact that Gore's connections with Clinton, his opposition to Bush, or what it could have been, but to many people he was somehow trustworthy.

As a result of this message, the environment has been greatly at the heart of the public conscious this past year. This has led to a change in both political and commercial rhetoric. As many politicians who once considered Global Warming to be a hippie scare tactic have began talking about environmental issues, and many companies are beginning to advertise their products as being environmentally friendly.

Hell, the fear of global warming even showed up in one of the greatest and most ubiquitous songs of the year. If Al Gore didn't get people listening, then Rhianna sure did.

There are of course a variety of questions surrounding this newfound environmental concern. Many environmentalists are concerned about the validity of this concern, as they raise issues of a "green washing" that is currently occurring by many politicians and corporations, as they exaggerate or falsify the environmental benefit of their policies or products. And of course, many other environmentalists see this public debate as being too little, and too late. In their eyes, the type of action required at this point is far too drastic than we are ready, willing or able to do.

But the newly invigorated environmental movement is not all doom and gloom. With the increase in awareness, comes and increase in funding for research into slowing, and potentially reversing the causes of our short-sited, excessive behaviour. People all over the world are looking into some amazing ideas like carbon sequestering, bio-fuels, renewable energy, electric cars, plastic from orange peels, and some other very exciting technologies. People seem to be finally taking this concern seriously as our generation seems to have found its calling. Our grandparents knew that they had a war to fight, our parents knew that they had a war to stop, and here we ("we" being the ones who don't remember the Vietnam war, but remember the first Iraq War) are with our mission, our goal, we have to save humanity from itself. It's going to be a tough one, but I think that we can find a way to do it. In the future when we look back and find our Pearl Harbour, or Walter Cronkite on the evening news, we will look back at An Inconvenient Truth as the moment that we realized that we couldn't ignore this problem anymore, as the moment that we realized that we needed to do something to make this world a better place.

Until next time,

G

Mr. Jobs and the Death of the Video Star

I continue my reflections on 2007 today with a look back at technology, counting, and a damn good song.


In 1979, The Buggles prophetically declared that "Video Killed the Radio Star". Twenty-eight years later, it seems that the commercial has in fact killed the video star.

If you were anywhere near a television this fall, chances are you saw this commercial, in which the lovely, and talented, Ms. Leslie Feist, taught the world how to count and Steve Jobs introduced the world to a truly great Canadian songstresses.







Now this commercial did help Gonzalez achieve a great deal of personal fame, but it really has not been at the same level as Feist's explosion has been. So what was the difference?

While you can point out all sorts of grave differences between the songs and the artists, I think that the main difference is in the commercial itself, and where the viewers attention goes. In the Sony ad, the attention is on the thousands of bouncing balls, with the music being a melodic accompaniment to the chaos. Where as in the Apple ad, the attention is firmly on Feist. For every second that commercial is playing, you can see the artist and hear her song. The fact that it's a commercial for an iPod really is secondary. Sure the iPods get picked up, or moved around, but the viewer still remains (rightly) transfixed on the artist until the split second shot at the end when it reminds you to buy a Nano.

This ad presents a marketable shift in the use of music in advertising, it places the artist at the forefront, above the product. The one tag line that the ad shows is "A little video for everyone", reminding the consumer that you can watch this video whenever you want, if only you own an iPod. While of course, this is an advertisement for an iPod, it really comes across as an advertisement for Feist, implying that being able to watch this video at any time is well worth the price of an iPod.

The other main difference is that the Apple commercial features the actual video for this song, which had came out months prior to the release of this commercial. So why was the ad so much more effective than the original release of the video?

I think that the main reason is pure and simple laziness. Watching a video takes a certain effort, either by switching to MTV/MuchMusic (during the 20 minutes of hte day when they actually play videos..) or following a link to the YouTube video. Commercials on the other hand take a certain effort to avoid watching. You need to find the remote and another channel where you know something else is on, and really it's just easier to passively lay there and be bombarded with your consumerist message.

The explosion of this song really is textbook 2007. It demonstrates the power of the media, the power of the brand, the direct relationship between artist and fan, and more importantly, the power of a damn good song.




Until next time,

G

The Hit and the Astericks

I looked at the calendar and I realized that there are only 16 days left until 2007 is gone forever. To celebrate the greatness that this year has been, I have decided that I am going to dedicate several posts to some of the memories of this year. The first installment looks at drugs, punctuation, and the pursuit of a legacy.




On August 7 Barry Bonds was up to bat in a game against the Washington Nationals. Facing a full count, the San Fransisco crowd began chanting his name. A crack of the bat and 435 feet later, history was made. Barry Bonds hit his 756th career homerun, passing Hank Aaron for the all-time lead.

Just in case you missed it that night, or on the countless replays later. Here it is...




While the crowd in San Fransisco was elated that Bonds hit this homerun, the majority of people were not. While few would argue Bonds remarkable abilities, he has not been a man without controversy.

In 2001, Bonds hit 73 homeruns, breaking Mark McGuire's single season record to the shock of many. Given the mans age and his previous high of 49 homeruns, people assumed foul play. Greg Anderson, Bonds person trainer during this time, was later indicted for supplying anabolic steroids to professional athletes. In a 2006 book entitled Game of Shadows, the authors made several allegations against Barry Bonds concerning steroid use. The authors stated that during the 2001 season, Barry Bonds was a veritable chemical cocktail, stating that he was on at least 6 different types of performance enhancing drugs.

During Anderson's investigation, Bonds vehemently denied using steroids, or that Anderson had given him any. However, in 2006, federal investigators began looking into the fact that Bonds may have committed perjury, and in fact had received steroids from Anderson.

The ball used to hit this historic homerun was put up for auction in September, and was bought by fashion designer, Marc Ecko for $752,467. Ecko set up a website to allow the people do democratically determine the fate of the ball. There were three choices, to donate it to the Hall of Fame, to brand it with an asterisk (implying that the achievement was tainted), or to send it off into space.

After millions of votes, 47% of people decided that ball should be marked with an asterisk, before being sent to Cooperstown. Showing that many people feel that Bonds' achievements were tainted.

To me, this really is our generations Watergate. Before any of you get ready to post some angry comments, insulting my intelligence, hear me out.

Before Nixon's imfamous scandal, politics was considered to be a very pure, and noble thing, the altruistic act of devoting your life to public service. However, the findings that the President himself was at the centre of political wrong-doings, opened the world's eyes to the corrupt underbelly of politics. This has ushered in a wave of cynicism towards the democratic process, whose effects can still be felt.

This asterisk really is the sporting-equivalent. Sports have a certain mythos for being a pure test of athletic excellence, and baseball has long propagated this perception with its reliance on a host of heroes from Ruth to Mantle to McGuire.

Now we find out that one of the greatest players of this generation, allegedly owes a great deal of his success not to abilities and determination, but to needless and oils. While Bonds is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, the majority of people have already thrown him to the snake pit, accusing him of being a blatant cheater. Gone appear to be the days when our sporting great would be held in the highest regard, instead they appear to be the victims of constant scrutiny as modern cynicism engulfs them as well.

I feel really bad for the next great athlete to come along and shatter this (or any other) record. People will not be revering their accomplishment, but instead they will be met with constant accusations that they were on some sort of performance enhancing drugs, similar to the CeNNa-gate story that I touched on a while ago.

As a foot not to this story, the allegations against Bonds, were the catalyst for a full scale investigation into steroid use in baseball. The findings of this investigation, the Mitchell Report, were just released earlier this week with staggering results (Click here to read the entire thing, or here to just read an article about it).

The report gives many, many, examples of players using various performance enhancing drugs over the past several years and lists several players, including Roger Clemens, as culprits.
The report even states that it would be impossible to find every player who has used performance enhancers, implying that there are a very large amount of them.

If steroids, and other drugs, are as rampant as Mitchell states, I really need to wonder why it took so long for it to be so well known. If so many players are using drugs, then surely the managers and/or owner of the teams must have known somehow, someway. While the players themselves are responsible for their own actions, there must have been a large amount of people who encouraged them, either directly, or by turning a blind eye to the process. Everyone in baseball, really is to blame for the current state of the game (including former Texas Rangers owner, George W. Bush, yes that George W. Bush). And really, if baseball is so drug-ridden, who is to say that any other sports aren't the same?

The date of Bonds' trial, and the presentation of the asterisk ball to the Hall of Fame, should be some of the more interesting moments of 2008. However, when we look back at the homerun, the asterisk, and the investigation, we will remember 2007 as a very important year in sporting history. It is the year that teamwork, dedication, and integrity all went out the window in favour of the pursuit of excellence, winning, and money at all costs.

In other words, sports has lost something that it may never be able to get back, it has lost its innocence.

Until next time,

G