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byronosaurusrex's Journal
Created on 2005-06-25 23:20:04 (#7545737), last updated 2006-07-03
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Basic Info| Name: | byronosaurusrex |
|---|---|
| Birthdate: | 10-03 |
| Location: | Canada |
Bio(Note to readers: This information is very, very out of date. I'm talking circa 2005. It's only here as a fascinating glance backward. That and because I'm too lazy to write up a new one; I don't have much in the way of opinions to offer.)
This journal is the current domain of Byron Calver, an erstwhile worker at a major grocery franchise, tentative university student, and most importantly, multiple-time World Puzzle Championship competitor. This is where I'll be making my commentaries upon various silly things that happen in the world around, but not usually my life per se; I've found in what little experience I have that it gets kind of old to pull the angsty "This is what happened today and it sucks, doesn't everyone agree?" card, so generally I'll only report the somewhat meaningful things from my own experiences, and not speak much of people who know who I am; I plan mostly to use this as a sounding board for my thoughts on the world around, and so I don't have to use the silly emo-y account name I made last year to take part in serious discussions.
The name is the nickname I was once given by a high school physics teacher; I found it suited my personality better than the all-too-obvious "Lord Byron", which got kind of grating over time. Besides, how well can a puzzle geek relate to an oversexed English poet, even if he was a fairly good one?
My two main passions over time have proven to be puzzles and music. Puzzles will probably get the top billing on this blog, since music tends to inspire a lot of empty chatter on my part, I've found; politics always seem to pique my interest, however, and I tend to get caught up in a lot of things around me, so there will not cease to be a variety of commentary here (unless, of course, I get lazy.)
Since I don't really care enough for looking up people by interest, I'll pad my biography with further detail on my interests as of June 2005. Five hits on a few things to try and give a solid portrait.
Politics. Five things I have to say about it off the bat.
1. Canadian politics is entertaining, but can tend to be absolutely disheartening sometimes. The 2004 election was a disgrace to the nation, as where it should have been about relatively fresh party leaders laying out their plans to make Canada better, it turned into a pathetic game of mudslinging, outside of a one-upsmanship battle on health care spending. Negativity to this extent can deter people who'd make great leaders from getting involved in politics at all.
2. Young people don't care about politics out here because they can't feel like they really have a say. Parties aren't going to put forward 20-something candidates for the most part, because they want someone everyone can trust. Even then, the youth of today aren't being brought up to pay attention to what's going on. I could only wish that Civics classes were available in the high schools around me, let alone mandatory. There's a serious disempowerment issue going on, and it needs fixing, because it's just contributing to the negative atmosphere.
3. The current first-past-the-post system isn't working. Conservatives got 12 of 13 seats in Saskatchewan last year, despite having less than half the vote. The Green Party got 4% of the national vote, but none of the 308 seats. Proportional representation's detractors say that it would create hopelessly fragmented minority governments; I don't quite see what the problem with that is. If an utterly fragmented government is representative of the public, then let them represent the public.
4. Representation in federal government has (mostly) become about parties rather than people. Voters aren't given much of a reason to care about what their representatives think, just how professional they look; more often than not, they get overshadowed by their party anyway. Strategic voting has become commonplace, with people voting however they feel will benefit their party most, even if it means voting for a different party. People are voting cynically.
5. As much as #1-4 of this list give off a sense of idealism, sufficient exposure to politics has cooled my desire to really try to change things. Idealism gave way to pragmatism, and I see more importance in politics as it is than politics as it should be. The government's probably taking a significant amount of lobbyist money as it is, and corruption has become a fact of life. I'd rather steer cleer of the muck than fight for my ideals; I'm not going to run for office any time soon, and I don't tend to discuss politics with people who disagree heavily, since it doesn't seem to be of much use.
On Music:
1. A little about my CD collection, and the methods by which I collect it. I'm a cheapskate. I go to different stores, looking for the good deals. The amount I'm willing to spend on a record tends to relate to the excitement I have for the band, and whether I respect the label. Unfortunately, I can't say my collection is especially prolific; there's around 200 records, but many of them were $3 sale rack buys, and I'm at best a wannabe hipster where band choices are concerned. I occasionally break my $12.99 upper limit if I'm excited enough about an album, or struck by an odd whim.
2. Second and foremost; I don't respect the business model or general attitudes displayed by the major labels. I read the book Raving Fans once. It's about customer service, and going the extra distance to make your customers happy. The major labels were faced with a paradigm shift; music became easy to transmit electronically. They had two options; adapt to the new paradigm, or fight to maintain the status quo. Optimistically, they could have adapted in fresh and innovative ways to make music-listening an experience people love to share, and make the public more excited about music in general, creating a broad market of Raving Fans. Instead, they opted to fight progress. They don't offer the consumers who like to download music something that can match peer-to-peer sharing for convenience and price, and they don't demonstrably trust the consumers who have time and again purchased their albums from the stores. They're relying too heavily on consumers whose use for music wavers, while the devoted, potential Raving Fans are being served lines of crap about how "it's necessary for the industry." They're building resentment among a large portion of the fanbase.
3. Irregardless of #2, I still buy a lot of CDs on the majors. Remember, I'm a cheapskate; indie labels are expensive buys. One might call me a hypocrite and say I'm not helping matters, but I point to my #5 of politics; idealism in theory, pragmatism in practice. My record collection is what one might expect from a wannabe-hipster cheapskate, as a variety of styles are represented one way or another, most notably my extended top-40 phase that stretched from the mid-90s well into the early 2000s. I hope to have amassed a quite large collection eventually, although at teenage wage, it's not a fast grower. I don't do P2P, and don't really plan to (excepting perhaps BitTorrent someday, since it seems useful); however, I think it's a perfectly reasonable concept.
4. Given my relatively small record collection, it seems pointless to try and call a top 10 albums, let alone given my indecisiveness; but I'm a very pointless person, so I'll try and figure up a top 10 from within my collection in no particular order.
The Strokes - Room On Fire; Coheed And Cambria - In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3; System Of A Down - Steal This Album!; Sloan - Twice Removed; Weezer - Pinkerton; The Best Of Morrissey; Elliott Smith - Figure 8; Stereolab - Oscillons From The Anti-Sun; Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights; Human Amusements At Hourly Rates: The Best Of Guided By Voices.
And an EP: Mellowdrone - A Demonstration of Intellectual Property.
Didn't I say very specifically, hipster wannabe and major-label cheapskate? Consider the point proven. If not, the following five releases I'm greatly interested in getting soon should prove the point: Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake And It's Morning; Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come; Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness; The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives (and yes, if I could pull it off, I would endeavor to be the Howlin' Pelle Almqvist of puzzling); DJ Shadow - ...Endtroducing. It's like a roll call of records that the cool people own and I'm too cheap to own and too lazy to download.:-)
5. Now that we've gone through the four sections about other people's records, it's time to touch base on my own. Well, the dream of my own. I've spent a good many years around musical instruments; I played trumpet for seven, snare drum for a couple, and as of now (June 2005) I've completed a year of acoustic guitar lessons. I'm not entirely confident in my playing ability, but I'm glad to be playing, and I hope to purchase an electric sometime in the future. However, I'm thinking bigger than my mediocre guitar playing; I want to be a singer, and a recording one at that. I feel I have a capable voice, but I need to work up some real money before I can think about recording it; I envision myself fronting a band of people who can actually play guitar and such.
And while we're at it, Five Quick Hits on hobbies that pique my interest:
1. Golf. I enjoy golf; I just haven't had much time for it this year, with my workload at work. I only wish I was good at it. I rather enjoy watching it on TV.
2. Poker. I like the thought of poker; just enough of a game of chance that anyone can win on any given day, but just enough of a game of skill to make it very profitable for good players long-term. I rather enjoy watching it on TV.
3. Stocks. There's a bit of a running theme of "things that skilled people make scads of money in" here. But it's an inevitability when you don't have much cash of your own, that you fantasize about building up a bankroll. I rather enjoy watching the Mad Money guy yell about stocks on TV.
4. Reality shows. The Amazing Race being first and foremost on quality, but I'm just as entertained by a fun trainwreck show as anything. Canadian Idol, The Apprentice's recent seasons, anything with Vanilla Ice. I rather enjoy watching them on TV.
5. Interesting books. There's a rather large independent bookstore in town, and I can spend hours there just reading through the various interesting books there, in all sorts of topics. Watching books on TV would be kind of redundant.
This journal is the current domain of Byron Calver, an erstwhile worker at a major grocery franchise, tentative university student, and most importantly, multiple-time World Puzzle Championship competitor. This is where I'll be making my commentaries upon various silly things that happen in the world around, but not usually my life per se; I've found in what little experience I have that it gets kind of old to pull the angsty "This is what happened today and it sucks, doesn't everyone agree?" card, so generally I'll only report the somewhat meaningful things from my own experiences, and not speak much of people who know who I am; I plan mostly to use this as a sounding board for my thoughts on the world around, and so I don't have to use the silly emo-y account name I made last year to take part in serious discussions.
The name is the nickname I was once given by a high school physics teacher; I found it suited my personality better than the all-too-obvious "Lord Byron", which got kind of grating over time. Besides, how well can a puzzle geek relate to an oversexed English poet, even if he was a fairly good one?
My two main passions over time have proven to be puzzles and music. Puzzles will probably get the top billing on this blog, since music tends to inspire a lot of empty chatter on my part, I've found; politics always seem to pique my interest, however, and I tend to get caught up in a lot of things around me, so there will not cease to be a variety of commentary here (unless, of course, I get lazy.)
Since I don't really care enough for looking up people by interest, I'll pad my biography with further detail on my interests as of June 2005. Five hits on a few things to try and give a solid portrait.
Politics. Five things I have to say about it off the bat.
1. Canadian politics is entertaining, but can tend to be absolutely disheartening sometimes. The 2004 election was a disgrace to the nation, as where it should have been about relatively fresh party leaders laying out their plans to make Canada better, it turned into a pathetic game of mudslinging, outside of a one-upsmanship battle on health care spending. Negativity to this extent can deter people who'd make great leaders from getting involved in politics at all.
2. Young people don't care about politics out here because they can't feel like they really have a say. Parties aren't going to put forward 20-something candidates for the most part, because they want someone everyone can trust. Even then, the youth of today aren't being brought up to pay attention to what's going on. I could only wish that Civics classes were available in the high schools around me, let alone mandatory. There's a serious disempowerment issue going on, and it needs fixing, because it's just contributing to the negative atmosphere.
3. The current first-past-the-post system isn't working. Conservatives got 12 of 13 seats in Saskatchewan last year, despite having less than half the vote. The Green Party got 4% of the national vote, but none of the 308 seats. Proportional representation's detractors say that it would create hopelessly fragmented minority governments; I don't quite see what the problem with that is. If an utterly fragmented government is representative of the public, then let them represent the public.
4. Representation in federal government has (mostly) become about parties rather than people. Voters aren't given much of a reason to care about what their representatives think, just how professional they look; more often than not, they get overshadowed by their party anyway. Strategic voting has become commonplace, with people voting however they feel will benefit their party most, even if it means voting for a different party. People are voting cynically.
5. As much as #1-4 of this list give off a sense of idealism, sufficient exposure to politics has cooled my desire to really try to change things. Idealism gave way to pragmatism, and I see more importance in politics as it is than politics as it should be. The government's probably taking a significant amount of lobbyist money as it is, and corruption has become a fact of life. I'd rather steer cleer of the muck than fight for my ideals; I'm not going to run for office any time soon, and I don't tend to discuss politics with people who disagree heavily, since it doesn't seem to be of much use.
On Music:
1. A little about my CD collection, and the methods by which I collect it. I'm a cheapskate. I go to different stores, looking for the good deals. The amount I'm willing to spend on a record tends to relate to the excitement I have for the band, and whether I respect the label. Unfortunately, I can't say my collection is especially prolific; there's around 200 records, but many of them were $3 sale rack buys, and I'm at best a wannabe hipster where band choices are concerned. I occasionally break my $12.99 upper limit if I'm excited enough about an album, or struck by an odd whim.
2. Second and foremost; I don't respect the business model or general attitudes displayed by the major labels. I read the book Raving Fans once. It's about customer service, and going the extra distance to make your customers happy. The major labels were faced with a paradigm shift; music became easy to transmit electronically. They had two options; adapt to the new paradigm, or fight to maintain the status quo. Optimistically, they could have adapted in fresh and innovative ways to make music-listening an experience people love to share, and make the public more excited about music in general, creating a broad market of Raving Fans. Instead, they opted to fight progress. They don't offer the consumers who like to download music something that can match peer-to-peer sharing for convenience and price, and they don't demonstrably trust the consumers who have time and again purchased their albums from the stores. They're relying too heavily on consumers whose use for music wavers, while the devoted, potential Raving Fans are being served lines of crap about how "it's necessary for the industry." They're building resentment among a large portion of the fanbase.
3. Irregardless of #2, I still buy a lot of CDs on the majors. Remember, I'm a cheapskate; indie labels are expensive buys. One might call me a hypocrite and say I'm not helping matters, but I point to my #5 of politics; idealism in theory, pragmatism in practice. My record collection is what one might expect from a wannabe-hipster cheapskate, as a variety of styles are represented one way or another, most notably my extended top-40 phase that stretched from the mid-90s well into the early 2000s. I hope to have amassed a quite large collection eventually, although at teenage wage, it's not a fast grower. I don't do P2P, and don't really plan to (excepting perhaps BitTorrent someday, since it seems useful); however, I think it's a perfectly reasonable concept.
4. Given my relatively small record collection, it seems pointless to try and call a top 10 albums, let alone given my indecisiveness; but I'm a very pointless person, so I'll try and figure up a top 10 from within my collection in no particular order.
The Strokes - Room On Fire; Coheed And Cambria - In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3; System Of A Down - Steal This Album!; Sloan - Twice Removed; Weezer - Pinkerton; The Best Of Morrissey; Elliott Smith - Figure 8; Stereolab - Oscillons From The Anti-Sun; Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights; Human Amusements At Hourly Rates: The Best Of Guided By Voices.
And an EP: Mellowdrone - A Demonstration of Intellectual Property.
Didn't I say very specifically, hipster wannabe and major-label cheapskate? Consider the point proven. If not, the following five releases I'm greatly interested in getting soon should prove the point: Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake And It's Morning; Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come; Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness; The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives (and yes, if I could pull it off, I would endeavor to be the Howlin' Pelle Almqvist of puzzling); DJ Shadow - ...Endtroducing. It's like a roll call of records that the cool people own and I'm too cheap to own and too lazy to download.:-)
5. Now that we've gone through the four sections about other people's records, it's time to touch base on my own. Well, the dream of my own. I've spent a good many years around musical instruments; I played trumpet for seven, snare drum for a couple, and as of now (June 2005) I've completed a year of acoustic guitar lessons. I'm not entirely confident in my playing ability, but I'm glad to be playing, and I hope to purchase an electric sometime in the future. However, I'm thinking bigger than my mediocre guitar playing; I want to be a singer, and a recording one at that. I feel I have a capable voice, but I need to work up some real money before I can think about recording it; I envision myself fronting a band of people who can actually play guitar and such.
And while we're at it, Five Quick Hits on hobbies that pique my interest:
1. Golf. I enjoy golf; I just haven't had much time for it this year, with my workload at work. I only wish I was good at it. I rather enjoy watching it on TV.
2. Poker. I like the thought of poker; just enough of a game of chance that anyone can win on any given day, but just enough of a game of skill to make it very profitable for good players long-term. I rather enjoy watching it on TV.
3. Stocks. There's a bit of a running theme of "things that skilled people make scads of money in" here. But it's an inevitability when you don't have much cash of your own, that you fantasize about building up a bankroll. I rather enjoy watching the Mad Money guy yell about stocks on TV.
4. Reality shows. The Amazing Race being first and foremost on quality, but I'm just as entertained by a fun trainwreck show as anything. Canadian Idol, The Apprentice's recent seasons, anything with Vanilla Ice. I rather enjoy watching them on TV.
5. Interesting books. There's a rather large independent bookstore in town, and I can spend hours there just reading through the various interesting books there, in all sorts of topics. Watching books on TV would be kind of redundant.
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