Anyone who obstructs my view of the free weights section

So I think that’s basically everyone! What an ogre!

Though gaining more and more importance in today’s world, day-to-day recycling still seems to be a low priority for most British people. I suppose this is because it is still seen as voluntary rather than compulsory and heck, 20 years ago Britain wasn’t as concerned – they just chucked everything in a landfill in China rather than educating the younger generation (maybe that explains the apathy here?).

"Warm up to recycling" by Toban Black

In Canada it’s not uncommon to see public recycling bins accompanying regular garbage ones along the streets and in parks. From what I’ve gathered in the UK (in my area, anyways), there are no public recycling bins except in privately run parks. This is something that is being introduced in London at the moment, but how long before it catches on nationally?

Fig. 1

As well, many supermarket items in Canada are sold in larger, plastic containers as opposed to smaller, glass ones. Take, for example, peanut butter (Fig. 1). Here we have the most delicious peanut butter in the world, Jif (510g in a plastic container) vs. Sun-Pat (sold most commonly in 227g but in this diagram, 350g in a glass container).  Manufacturers in the UK must spend a fortune and produce a heck of a lot of waste… Shouldn’t there be some laws governing that?

And, even though 9/10 households in the UK have kerbside recycling, most if not all of the Britons I know don’t actively recycle. Perhaps they’re lacking incentive to do so. Perhaps they were never taught how?

Canadians seem to, especially in places where garbage bags have to be marked with a pricey sticker in order to be picked up on the curb.  When you buy beer / liquor bottles in Canada, they tack on a “bottle deposit” fee, which you get back if you bring your bottles back to the store. Incentive…

Fig. 2

Despite recent efforts, there’s no doubt that the UK is significantly behind in the green movement (Fig. 2).  I’ll do my part, but I sincerely hope things change drastically over the next few years. If not, I’m moving to Austria!

Further Reading

• Where Does Your Recycling Go? BBC News
• Recycling Symbols Quiz BBC News
• Environment and Greener Living direct.gov.uk
• Recycling and Waste Defra

I was with this guy whom I’d been dating for almost 4 years at that point. We had a tradition of going to the beach on my birthday, and that year I had asked him if he’d fix the window seal on his car so that I could have my window down on the way to the beach.

I arrived at his house to find that he had not fixed the window seal. He stopped at Canadian Tire on the way to get the stuff to seal it, but in order for the seal to dry, my window had to stay up the entire way to the beach. We’re talking a one hour drive in 30 degree heat in a car with black interior and no air conditioning.

After the beach, he didn’t take me to dinner or get me a gift. I don’t think he even wished me a happy birthday.

I met up with my best friend and we met my boyfriend and his friends at a bar. On the way there it POURED rain and we ended up getting completely soaked, head to toe.

At the bar, nobody bought me a drink, including my boyfriend. I had only brought enough money with me for a few pints after which I tried to take money out but my bank card wasn’t working. I had to order water.

When we were leaving, my friend’s brother got in a fight so we had to leave quickly and everyone got split up. I kept telling my best friend that I needed a hot dog because I hadn’t eaten dinner, but she was distracted by what happened with her brother, forgot I was staying at her place and left me standing at the hotdog vendor. I realized I didn’t have any money and couldn’t buy food.

I decided to just go home instead, so I walked to one of my boyfriend’s friend’s cars. When I got there, they were like “Sorry Amy, there isn’t enough room for you” and everyone including my boyfriend got in the car and drove off.

I then had to walk for another 25 minutes to another friend’s car. He drove me home and bought me McDonalds. That Big Mac was the highlight of my day!

Is hard work overrated?

Jade Goody rose to fame after being an unreserved extrovert (to put it nicely) on Big Brother and by publicizing and capitalizing on her battle with cancer. She became famous with very little effort, and the British public somehow idolized her.

Then, of course, there are the magazines filled with page upon page of ‘invite only’ parties showcasing the young socialites out partying on daddy’s cash and not having to care about getting a great job because an alumnus from their posh school will hire them…

And it’s not just the UK that worships socialites; take Olivia Palermo for example. She’s the daughter of a real estate developer who made a name for herself by being photographed at social events in NYC. She is depicted on MTV’s The City as a real-life Blair Waldorf whose judgemental and condescending nature are hardly redeeming qualities. While viewers love-to-hate her, the fact remains that she is receiving $12K per episode for being a snob.

Or there’s Nadya Suleman whose exploitation of reproductive technology by giving birth to octuplets gave her the international attention she was looking for.

The family of the thirteen year old dad (who turned out not to be the father after all) must have okayed selling his story to the tabloids, probably in exchange for money and hopes of instant-fame.

It’s sickening, actually, the things people will do to grab and hold onto the spotlight. And, much like slowing down to look at a car accident, the rest of us can’t seem to look away!

For example, here is a photo of Kate Moss with no mascara on:

Kate Moss without makeup

Kate Moss is the face of Rimmel London. Here she is in an ad for New Extreme Black Magnif Eyes Mascara, which boasts 70% more vertical lashes:

Kate Moss Rimmel mascara ad

How is it possible that the teeny weeny lashes in the first photo somehow morphed into those pictured above with a few coats of mascara? It’s not physically possible.

The advertisement for the same mascara was banned after viewers complained that her lashes were fake.

Okay, so there’s one example. But what about every single other brand of mascara?! For example, I use The Colossal Volum’ Express® Mascara by Maybelline New York, which claims it gives you 9x the volume, instantly. The claim is ridiculous and the advertisement is unbelievable.

The Colossal Volum

This woman is wearing dead caterpillars on here eyes! Here are my real eyelashes after two coats of the same mascara:

My eyes with Maybelline mascara

You’ll notice that my eyelashes don’t reach my eyebrows, look relatively natural and are therefore completely unsuitable for a mascara ad.

In order to fully understand Maybelline’s 9x volume instantly claim, I thought it would be best to examine a single eyelash. Since we know that no mascara can actually add eyelashes, they have to base the thickness and volume claims on appearance of your existing eyelashes. This means that each eyelash would have to appear 9x thicker, right?

Projected eyelash appearance

I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how a claim so ridiculous could make it past the Advertising Standards Authority and the other various companies that regulate advertising claims. Perhaps the fact that ‘everybody’s doing it’ makes it okay? Don’t get me started on wrinkle creams…

I don’t know about you but I use Facebook to connect with (or should I say spy on?) people who have a direct relationship with me – most are family, friends or acquaintances whom I’ve met in real life at one point or another. On Twitter I have peers, friends and complete strangers following me.

My Facebook status is generally more intimate (ie: how I’m feeling, what I’m up to). It’s something I’d tell a friend on the phone. If I want to share a link, photo or video I use the functionality built in to Facebook and rarely use my status to do so.

In my opinion, tweets should be less personal but more relatable, interesting, and thought-provoking. The purpose of my tweets is to trigger a response: to have others follow me, @reply or RT (re-tweet).

There is also an element of reader anonymity on Twitter. Since I don’t necessarily know all of my followers, posting a tweet is kind of like being my own publicist. I have to be careful not to complain about clients or share too much about what I’m working on out of concern for who might see it.

On Facebook, I know who will see my status and it is intended for that specific audience. I know that the bulk of my Facebook friends would not enjoy 10 reply and re-tweets flooding their news feeds each day.

You get it now, I hope. Different audiences equals different statuses/tweets. And remember – nobody wants your posts showing up in their feed aggregator twice!

Air Canada jets at Toronto Lester B. Pearson Airport

When I phoned Air Canada to book my cat’s flight, they referred me to a different phone number for cargo. I called the number they provided and booked the flight 2 weeks in advance. They said I had to be there 4 hours before my flight and said that DEFRA would be contacting me about some forms I’d need to fax them for entry clearance. I left both my UK and Canadian telephone numbers as well as Chris’ here in the UK.

Now, I’m not sure who exactly is to blame, but either Air Canada Cargo didn’t provide DEFRA with all of my phone numbers, or DEFRA only chose to call my UK mobile number, which didn’t make any sense considering I was in Canada at the time and flying with the pet, which they must have been aware of. If I hadn’t gotten Chris to call the James Cargo in London, I wouldn’t have had entry clearance forms

The one thing nobody mentioned was that Air Canada Cargo isn’t a part of the airport. I don’t exactly export things on a regular basis, so you think someone might have explained where I was to go. Even though the baggage and cargo compartments are essentially the exact same, pets are forbidden to fly to the UK through baggage because of the paperwork and handling of the animals. That much I knew.

So I showed up at the airport after a 2 hour car ride with Gravy meowing all the way. I was 4 hours early with my reference number and all kinds of paperwork — Rabies certificate, tick & tapeworm vaccination receipts, expensive blood test results, etc. All my paperwork certified by the CFIA (Canadian government agency).

The chick at the booking desk didn’t refer me to AC Cargo when I said I booked it through them. She said it showed up on her screen as $270 and I said “No, it’s supposed to be $900 because of the paperwork involved.” So upon my request she checked with her boss (who gave her the okay) and we processed the $270 – I figured I’d be billed the rest in the UK.

I went through security and to my gate only to find that I had my mom’s car keys, so I had to go back through security to courier them to her for $40, then go back through security to the gate.

Thirty or so minutes before my flight I got called to the boarding desk. The first thing they said to me was “Your cat can’t fly. Can someone come and pick him up?”

I BURST out in tears immediately. “What do you mean?” I said. “I’ve done everything right. I have all the paperwork here. This is so not my fault!” The employees were shocked at my reaction and tried to calm me down. I apologized and said I was just worried about my cat since he’d been stuck in a cage for 8 hours and he was really stressed. Tears just kept coming.

The one employee at the desk said he used to work at Cargo and explained that he’d put me on a later flight. I had to go back through security to baggage, pick up Gravy then take a $41 taxi (it was supposed to be $31 but the taxi driver stiffed me on my change) to Air Canada Cargo since the only access to it is around the airport.

It took about an hour at Cargo for the paperwork and by that time I hadn’t eaten in 7 hours. I taxi’d back (another $20) to the airport (still sobbing uncontrollably all the while), went to baggage and sorted out my bags. Then I went back to the Air Canada desk and figured out my tickets while unloading some emotional baggage on the woman at the desk.

Finally I made it to my gate after grabbing a quick pint of beer to fill my empty stomach, since by that point all the restaurants had closed.

At the boarding desk, the woman checking my passport frowned at the screen for a second before scribbling on my ticket. I noticed shortly after that she had changed my seat and as I sat down I realized I must have been bumped me up to premium economy.

I had just made myself at home in my seat, glad that nobody was going to sit beside me, when a flight attendant announced I was in the wrong seat. I sighed, looked at my ticket and he handed me a new one and stated, “You’re supposed to be in seat number 5. It’s up here at the front.”

Seat number five happened to be first class with a sleeper seat, champagne, personal TV and a meal cooked by a real chef. I couldn’t REALLY enjoy it though. I felt too guilty to enjoy it because Gravy was below stressing in the cabin. I nearly had an anxiety attack during takeoff while thinking about how scared he must have been.

To top it all off, my vet used a flea treatment that doesn’t have “marketing authorization for cats” in Canada (again not my fault – how was I to know?), so Gravy had to stay 24 hours in quarantine upon arrival and we had to make another trip to London to pick him up the next evening.

NEVER will I ever fly with a pet again.

MacBook Pro: Distorted video or no video issues

Symptoms

In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within two years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

And here’s the best part:

Resolution

Apple is issuing refunds to customers who may have paid for repairs related to this issue. Please contact Apple for details on the refund process.

When I last spoke with Apple Care and they offered to courier my laptop to a specialized repair centre, the woman insisted she was doing me a special favour because my laptop was out of warranty, even though the original problem occurred while it was still under warranty and had never been properly addressed.

This time, though, it came back with a brand new display and appears to be working perfectly. I think that the issue may have been related to a faulty inverter board, but whatever it was it’s fixed now. Here’s hoping it doesn’t die again!

I bought my Macbook Pro (a refurb because I was broke) in September of last year. My original warranty had nearly worn out when I started having problems with my graphics card, the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT. First the screen started to go funny blocks of colour. Then I occasionally had trouble getting the display working from sleep.

Then one day it stopped working. Bummer. But these things happen, right?

My colleague, Max, pointed me towards online forums where other MacBook Pro users were having the exact same problems. We* were able to diagnose the problem fairly easily, and I took it to the Apple shop.

The problem is with the graphics card being crappy and overheating. We were able to connect remotely and discover that my beloved laptop wasn’t recognizing the graphics card for what it was, but as an integrated Intel chip.

Because the graphics card is soldered to the logic board, the whole dang thing needs replacing which is essentially a new laptop, right?

Wrong. Two weeks later the exact same thing started happening again, which we half-expected based on customer complaints in the forums.

So now my laptop is in getting fixed again and I am trying to work on a Dell, which would be alright if I didn’t keep trying to use Apple shortcuts and having random things happen…

* by ‘we’ I mean Max. I just stood around.

There’s a song lyric swimming in my head that goes “if it’s the simple things that matter, why don’t we live our lives that way?”

It’s great to have goals and to strive to meet them, but if one bases happiness on their ’success’ (or a measure of their wealth), could they ever be truly happy?  Also, if they are constantly comparing their success to the success of others, surely they’ll miss the simple things!