And the Winner IS...

Oscars tonight! Unfortunately, the winner is no one. There are so many things to write about the last couple of weeks and I’ve been pretty slack – and unfortunately for me, I picked up that slack today and so did everyone else. With the weather being so nice lately, everyone feeling summer and can’t wait for it to finally arrive. There is no winner this week because of this week’s cultural topic:

HURRY UP AND WAIT

The other day, I threw on the shades, cranked the tunes and drove all the way home with the car window down. Yup, just an average week in subtropical Calgary, AB. WHAT?! Thanks to Chinooks, Calgary gets the intermittent taste of springtime all winter long. A good thing? You’d better believe it. But I’ll complain about it anyway.

Q: But wait, Kai, what the hell does nice weather have anything to do with waiting?

A: Why do you think people get fat in the winter? Why don’t you see as many people walking around outside when it’s really cold out? Why don’t people go to the mountains when the weather is forecast cloudy, miserable and unpleasant? Simple: They all stay inside.

To avoid going outside, people must stay INSIDE. Thus when they are inside, they are NOT OUTSIDE. What this means is that when it’s nice, people DO go outside. When people leave their houses (or their rented houses/apartments/igloos) the OUTSIDE is BUSIER. And busier is bad for business…unless you’re talking about a non-figurative business in which case more business generally means more bottom line profits. Okay, that was a stupid thing to write, but I hate having to wait in line.

The biggest problem for me is that no matter how far ahead you plan there will always be someone else further ahead than you. Even if you get to the ski hill nice and early, there’s no guarantee you will be the first on the lift. If you get to the store, there’s no guarantee you will have the best parking stall. And in real life, just because you’ve been at a company the longest, doesn’t mean you’ll have the highest (or highest paying) position…though they all help. HOWEVER, if you get to the ski hill late, you will NOT be the first on the hill. If you get to the store an hour before closing you will NOT have a full selection of inventory to choose from. And if you arrive early at work and work diligently at your job…you may still be overlooked. Operations Managers all over the world are constantly figuring out ways to “alleviate the bottleneck”. Hey, Operations Managers - Bottleneck this! Get rid of people who get in my way of doing things efficiently.

There are some things, obvioulsy, that you can control in the little realm we'll call "waiting around" and, equally, some you cannot. And of course, as I do for most things that trouble me, I blame THIS epidemic on stupid people.

CAN CONTROL:
You can control what time you wake up in the morning.
You can control when you drive like a stupid moron.
You can control if you are lazy and just take the stairs two flights instead.
You can control how much time you do doing unproductive activities.
You can control how you react to stupid people.

CANNOT CONTROL:
You cannot control that sometimes the gondola will break down.
You cannot control that sometimes there will be an accident on the way to work.
You cannot control when the elevator will break down.
You cannot control the weather.
You cannot control stupid people around you.

The concept of hurry up and wait was initially formally introduced to me in a customs line up to reenter England at London Gatwick airport approximately one year ago as I was flying back Carnavale in Venice with some friends. This was also the same weekend that a group of girls said “We don’t have an accent!” – but they were stupid…and in front of me in line – but that’s neither here nor there. Bottom line is: if the cold weather could just continue long enough for me to finish all my chores, shopping and make it so that people are unmotivated enough to NOT make me wait in line, I would be able to make more time to write my blog…which would be great. So HURRY and STOP BEING SO STUPID SOMETIMES! Or take your time – you’ll probably have to wait anyway.

The Power of non-Sense

It has recently come to my attention that I actually have readers again. In the year I was away, I would have been lucky to claim I had 5 regular readers. Nowadays, it’s impossible to know how many I have; educated guesses suggest we’re up to around 8. which, turns out, is more than can be said about most TV shows these days. This week’s cultural topic is:

FANATICISM

When you think of fanactics, what is the first thing that pops into mind? I’ve thought up a few but in the interest of keeping this thing interactive, if you think of any others, leave your mark in the comments section.


Sports

With the conclusion of this weekend’s NFL Pro-Bowl, American football is officially over for the season. Of course, no one actually cares about the pro-bowl, but with the devastating conclusion to last week’s historical Superbowl, it leaves us with nothing to watch on Sundays. So why do people care so much about sports? Professional sports bring communities together. Of course, there are always a few who decided to piss us all off and cheer for the bad-guys, like as if you can live in Calgary, where you also grew up, and end up truly liking the unsuccessful Edmonton Oilers. 1980s dynasty-schmynasty. But that’s exactly my point. That last sentence (now two sentences ago) was an outburst of trash-talking, which periodically will erupt between to passionate sports fans. You’ll probably never hear people yelling at the top of their lungs about a golfer missing a putt, or a tennis player not returning a volley, but even the biathlon amateurs have fans out there somewhere. International sporting becomes the most passionate, because fans are now not only supporting their favorite team, are also united in supporting their country.

People get superstitious about sporting events, dress up in funny clothing, put their life savings into games they have no control over, etc. The thing people have to realise however is that sports entertainment is just that; it’s entertainment. So you may get together with your friends three days a week to watch your team hoping they win, and in a way the game schedule will also dictate your social schedule, but if everyone could finally realise that when your team loses it is not the end of the world; that would be great. Thanks. Remember: There’s no shame in second place…unless the Oilers are ahead of you.


Music

Obviously, like in any other aspect in life, people have preferences, and whether they were acquired or whether they are ingrained genetically, different types of music appeal to different types of people. For the most part, people stick to their bases and enjoy similar artists or genres and may have offshoots, but the fact of the matter is anyone who tells you they like every kind of music is lying. Tolerance is a different story. But as they have historically, social movements and social trends are associated with music, be it protest music, psychedelic hippy music, or the current emo-punk movement. No one is going to be able to participate, as much as they might want to, in every single movement associated with every single music genre. Traditionally a rock-boy, I didn’t used to be a fan of country music, but then turned 18 and ended up a few nights at the late, great Cowboys Nightclub for some drinking and the twang became something I couldn’t be without. Then again, once in a while a specific band that you really dislike for whatever reason, say because they are the epitome of emo-rock – which I hate, comes along and comes out with a song that is universally appealing, and rather than immediately changing the radio station you have a lapse of good judgment and momentarily let your guard down just long enough for the tolerable musical stylings to enter into your world and during downtimes at work you find yourself clicking to youtube to listen to the song on your command, ie. MCR – Teenagers. Blech.


Television

This Film Writers Guild strike is becoming huge pain in my ass. Nothing new to talk about and no new quotable material on TV, I’m running on empty. Of course, I have no control over this, and don’t honestly know a lot about it, but the bottom line is this: Without new television, fans who week by week anxiously await their favorite network television programming are slowing finding interests in other activities and in the meantime are becoming more and more disconnected from pop-culture. People have to keep up with other things, like politics, or sports, or reality TV, or worse of all, reruns. Certain talk shows, namely late night talk shows, have convinced their staff to cross the picket lines and are actually paying out of their own pockets, (pockets most likely being a network-subsidized pocket), just so that they can give their fans fresh material. And who’s to blame? Well if you’re counting, you can definitely put this one on the union. These days you rarely hear “Hey, did you watch that new [insert show name] last night?”. And I miss it. Networks have resorted to an emergence of pilot shows – shows which have never otherwise been aired because they are lame and honestly, if there are no sports on, I’d sooner read a book than veg on the couch. Of course, video games are also played on the TV and are actually becoming really neat and sophisticated. Along with that comes online gaming and the whole idea of playing with people around the world is pretty dang cool. But even on the nerdiest of all gaming sites, you won’t be able to hear anyone talking about last week’s episode new Heroes… Basically, if video killed the radio star, unions killed the video. Unions also killed freewill, and capitalism, but that’s a subject probably better left for a different day.

Overall, whether examining all types of fanatics, be they emo-goths or union workers, everybody just wants to feel like they are a part of something. That something could be it as huge as a social revolution or as minute as two people in a friendship. People want to know that there are other like-minded people around them, whether that’s a preference for a certain television show, a sports team, or just sharing a taste in music. It’s amazing to think about millions of people all watching the same sporting event like the FIFA World Cup, or how a legendary recording artist like Paul McCartney can get 300 000 people together for a free show in Rome with one day’s notice.

But that’s the power of fanaticism. Good marketing helps too.