Random Rants 75: This is Bat Country!

[aimeeandbeatles]

My parents had basic phone service when I was growing up, and they still have that same home phone number I remember from my childhood! Our service was from Bell Canada.

Over here in the Maritimes, up until about 1997 or 1998, there was MT&T (Maritime Telegraph & Telephone Company). I think it was a monopoly too and you had to rent your phone from them. Then it merged with a bunch of other companies and became Aliant, which then became Bell Aliant. Now it's all just Bell Canada, I think. I remember seeing the MT&T logo on a big tower in town until they finally updated it a few years ago.

 

[Phrossack]

I also think Christmas music must be destroyed. Two months of the same old kitschy songs that have played for sixty years straight is quite enough!

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

The radio station I listen to handles it pretty well. For most of December they only play Christmas songs like three times a day. Then the week before Christmas they play a Christmas song about once an hour and it's a good variety of them too. (Though traditional Christmas songs played as rock music sounds really weird. It's better when they make up their own songs.) Except for all the advertisements it's not that bad really.

 

[Phrossack]

The radio station I listen to handles it pretty well. For most of December they only play Christmas songs like three times a day. Then the week before Christmas they play a Christmas song about once an hour and it's a good variety of them too. (Though traditional Christmas songs played as rock music sounds really weird. It's better when they make up their own songs.) Except for all the advertisements it's not that bad really.

I don't listen to the radio or watch tV but buildings here sure like to play it 24/7 starting the first day of November.

 

[Traitorfish]

I also think Christmas music must be destroyed. Two months of the same old kitschy songs that have played for sixty years straight is quite enough!

That's one way in which Britain is more advance that the United States: we have old kitschy songs that have been played for forty years straight.

It's curious why our respective Christmas canons crystalised at different times. My best guess is it that it's tied to when the sort of mass consumer culture that allows a modern or American-style Christmas became available to the majority of the population, and whatever generation first gets that Christmas decides what Christmas "sounds like". In the United States, that was in the 1950s, so Christmas became cemented in Boomer nostalgia for old crooners; in Britain, where the immediate post-war period was more about reconstruction that growth, it was the 1970s, so we get Gen Xer nostalgia for weird Brummie glam rock.

It's also probably tied to the fact that the British are a psychology ruined people, capable of expressing themselves exclusively through the twin modes of self-conscious irony and overwrought sentimentality, which are respectively better served by Wizzard and Band Aid than by the unbearably dignity of Bing Crosby. But that last part might be, ah, editorialising on my part.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I wonder what that says for Canada, seeing as we sometimes seem like a weird intermediary between the U.S. and Britain. At least, the spelling is.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There isn't much I can do about it, though.

Rant: I was out doing errands. I got a drink out of a fountain at a store to take my medication and noticed that there were no straws. I thought that they were just behind the counter. But no, they'd taken away the straws because of concerns about "plastic waste." (To the best of my knowledge, there's no actual ban on them here.) Which would be nice, except that I have a disability and need straws to properly drink without spilling everything all down my front or accidentally choking. Couldn't they have just put one box of them behind the counter in case someone asked for them?

I wish I could've said I just walked away, but I had to take my medication. (And yes, my drink spilled down my front.) I guess I won't be going to that place for a drink again. And I'll start carrying a reusable straw in my purse in case it comes up again.

There were some articles on CBC.ca about straws. Unfortunately, there are a lot of stores, restaurants, and politicians who are incredibly clueless, dismissive of the disabled population, and just plain STUPID. And then there are the able-bodied who have the view that "they should just stay home."

I wonder what that says for Canada, seeing as we sometimes seem like a weird intermediary between the U.S. and Britain. At least, the spelling is.

We are an intermediary between the U.S. and Britain. Add in the French and native words, and you get the situation where no spell checker we use ever suffices without some extra additions.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

There were some articles on CBC.ca about straws. Unfortunately, there are a lot of stores, restaurants, and politicians who are incredibly clueless, dismissive of the disabled population, and just plain STUPID. And then there are the able-bodied who have the view that "they should just stay home."

When looking it up myself, I just saw the usual "why don't they just carry around a reusable straw?" Aside from the cost of it (sure, it's not much, but when added to everything disabled people have to pay for already...), reusable straws aren't always an option. Paper straws come apart easily, rigid metal and plastic ones can cause injuries, and even silicone straws have some disadvantages.

 

[Phrossack]

Rant: I am truly immune to compliments and praise. My dad called me just to tell me he was proud of me, and I mumbled thanks while refusing to believe I deserved it. But one insult or perceived slight and I remember it and hold that grudge forever...

 

[Takhisis]

When looking it up myself, I just saw the usual "why don't they just carry around a reusable straw?" Aside from the cost of it (sure, it's not much, but when added to everything disabled people have to pay for already...), reusable straws aren't always an option. Paper straws come apart easily, rigid metal and plastic ones can cause injuries, and even silicone straws have some disadvantages.

How about one of those little plastic cups with an inbuilt straw? I used to have one as a kid. It may make you look silly when you take it out but it's better than going about the place with drink stains.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

How about one of those little plastic cups with an inbuilt straw? I used to have one as a kid. It may make you look silly when you take it out but it's better than going about the place with drink stains.

I actually have a few that I use at home. They're really useful. I'll put one in the car next time I go down.

 

[Cutlass]

That's one way in which Britain is more advance that the United States: we have old kitschy songs that have been played for forty years straight.

It's curious why our respective Christmas canons crystalised at different times. My best guess is it that it's tied to when the sort of mass consumer culture that allows a modern or American-style Christmas became available to the majority of the population, and whatever generation first gets that Christmas decides what Christmas "sounds like". In the United States, that was in the 1950s, so Christmas became cemented in Boomer nostalgia for old crooners; in Britain, where the immediate post-war period was more about reconstruction that growth, it was the 1970s, so we get Gen Xer nostalgia for weird Brummie glam rock.

It's also probably tied to the fact that the British are a psychology ruined people, capable of expressing themselves exclusively through the twin modes of self-conscious irony and overwrought sentimentality, which are respectively better served by Wizzard and Band Aid than by the unbearably dignity of Bing Crosby. But that last part might be, ah, editorialising on my part.

Do they play Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer there?

 

[Takhisis]

I actually have a few that I use at home. They're really useful. I'll put one in the car next time I go down.

If you assign one permanently to car duty, you'd better wash it regularly.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I figured that.

A rather minor rant, considering: It really, really, really annoys me when non-critical software (browsers and antiviruses and those sorts of things are understandable) have no option to disable update notifications. Particularly when I decided not to update for some reason or another. (Software that automatically updates itself without asking is another issue entirely.)

Also: Sheesh, I really need to think things through. Sometimes my cat accidentally flings her poo out of the litterbox from scraping too hard. (I probably should get one with higher sides.) It's not a big issue because I just pick it up with a piece of toilet paper and flush it before scrubbing the floor. Except this time I used a piece of paper towel to pick it up. Without thinking. I just threw the whole thing in and tried to flush it down. It's a rather fussy low-flow toilet, so three guesses what happened.

 

[Takhisis]

I figured that.

I prefer to point it out because most people don't figure that kind of things out. They complain about being sick or ill or poorly or about bugs and what-not but changing their sheets regularly and vacuuming the palce every week never seems to cross their minds.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Also: Sheesh, I really need to think things through. Sometimes my cat accidentally flings her poo out of the litterbox from scraping too hard. (I probably should get one with higher sides.) It's not a big issue because I just pick it up with a piece of toilet paper and flush it before scrubbing the floor. Except this time I used a piece of paper towel to pick it up. Without thinking. I just threw the whole thing in and tried to flush it down. It's a rather fussy low-flow toilet, so three guesses what happened.

Plunger Time?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yup. At least the plunger fixed it. I was worried it wouldn't.

 

[Traitorfish]

Do they play Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer there?

They do not. Our tonally dissonant Christmas song is "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues, which is about the festive charms of two alcoholics trying to destroy each other.

 

[Arakhor]

They do not. Our tonally dissonant Christmas song is "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues, which is about the festive charms of two alcoholics trying to destroy each other.

And it's really hard to avoid hearing at least once during December.

 

[Morty]

so we get Gen Xer nostalgia for weird Brummie glam rock.

It's Chrrriiiiistmmasssssssss!!

Rant: Slade are actually from the Black Country (Walsall/Wolverhampton) rather than Birmingham. Indistinguishable for 99% of people on here, but for those of us from that area it's an important difference.