As I am sitting here on the bus, I am thinking about the "flattening of the world"

**Fair warning, this is just a sudden brain wave as I was getting off the bus and walking through the rain back home, so this could make very little sense, and reading over it is not doing any good for me.

I just had a very interesting Hungarian class where we discussed how Hungarians give tips, and what their characteristic meal habits are. It was noted that Hungarians really do not tip; they are poor, and why should they tip only a select few of the minimum wage-earning population? It was very direct, very Hungarian. Food-wise, they held a very European idea of the long lunch with smaller meals around with heavy, characteristically-Hungarian foods.

Now, the food. With a, for all intents and purposes, Jewish mother, food was a topic of choice. In her household, there was a bit of a clash of cultures: a Belgian mother and Hungarian father. Between the delicate and the light and the rough and direct sat my mother. I know she absolutely loved it, though bits of each were preferred. The point: when she visited the family in Hungary, my mother would eat like a Hungarian, which is excellent, except for the breakfasts. North America really caught onto the idea of a light, fruit-like breakfast, like that of the French speaking world. Hungarian breakfasts are meat. Well, not entirely, but they are hearty and thick feeling. My mother has told me this story countless times: Hungarians like their meats and breaks and stews, but, after a week or so, my mother needed something light, especially for breakfast. She scanned the kitchen, and grabbed a pepper, thinking "thank God, I finally found a juicy, bell pepper", and sunk her teeth into it. (Backstory: my mother and I cannot do spicy. Ketchup is spicy to us.) It was a hot pepper. She spent hours recovering, her tear ducts have never been drier. Moral: Hungary has thick foods, even the "bell peppers".

So, in class today, our prof explained that their breakfasts consist of meats and "light" sandwiches. Albeit, Starbucks has popularised the breakfast sandwich, but, honestly, I do not, personally, view a sandwich as breakfast-y. But, that is what is great about Hungary, they do not tip because they do not see the fairness in it, they eat hearty and heavy meals, they are a homely and rough people, just as Belgians are a little more Dutch, very proud, delicate, but tough, and the French are, well, French.

The whole reason behind this post is just from a quick comment said aside in class today: our prof's mother used to come home to cook and prepare the customary large lunch, but that is dying out as people are working more 8-17h jobs. A very American idea.

That got me thinking on the bus, our world really is becoming flat, and I honestly cannot decide if that is a good thing or not. The French are holding fast to their long lunch periods, but, as in Hungary, it is dying out. Tipping is spreading around the world as a standard. Supermarkets have become the standard. It seems to be erasing cultural identity. I mean, studying here in Canada is really eye-opening, a truly multi-cultural society. You can be on the bus and look around to see a strikingly English gent, who is sitting next to a quintessential Chinese girl, whereas behind you are two obviously French people (not only because they are speaking French), and next to you is a girl from Nigeria. What happens when we start to become too similar? Even myself, usually you can tell European groups apart pretty easily, but I am a mutt; I am technically Italian, French, Belgian, Slovakian, Hungarian, Irish, Norwegian, etc. We may keep our cultural history in books, groups of people, and whatnot, but there will be a loss of national and cultural identity. With a flattening, we get a more informed populace, yes, and a more globalised viewpoint, which are great. There is now more respect, both for the individual and the culture; there is an increased awareness that comes with globalisation. Still, we have genocide and suffering, but we have always had that. From sexual abuse and maltreatment of people to meaningless killings, the world is becoming more and more outraged at individual events, which it good, but this idea that more people are aware of the atrocities that surround them is only a byproduct of globalistation.

In so many respects, globalisation is great, it is the future, except, with it is the loss of cultural identity. We cannot stop globalisation, but we can at least understand that we could see a mass-cultural extinction.

Quakecast

My aunt/god-mother/Randi predicts earthquakes in her spare time using a self-created formula, and she is becoming quite accurate. The earthquakes she predicts are quit a big deal, but she does not have much of a follower base, so here is her URL: Quakecast.blogspot.com. I highly recommend following her predictions.

Here was one of her last entries:

World: 211

Calif: 403

All I want to say is there was on MSNBC website the article says:

A strong earthquake in the central Philippines killed at least 13 people Monday as it destroyed buildings and triggered landslides that buried dozens of houses, trapping residents. At least 29 people were missing. The 6.8-magnitude quake, in a narrow strait just off Negros Island, caused a landslide in Guihulngan, a city of about 180,000 people in Negros Oriental province. As many as 30 houses were buried and at least 29 people were missing, Mayor Ernesto Reyes said. "Their situation is bad because if you are covered by landslide for one hour, two hours, how can you breathe?" he said. "But we just hope for the best, that there are still survivors."

My weekend quakecast said if the world number is around 210 any area within 850 miles of a previous 5 needs to be on alert. This quake happened within 200 miles of a previous 5.

Enough said. My heart and prayers go out to the people of the Phillippines.

Photos from First Western Canadian Muggle Quidditch Game!

Here is the next round of photos:

The final count was three broken brooms.

I don't even...

Clench the sock, clench it!

Beaters.

"Serious, serious, serious, Patrick, serious..." and "What is going on with those Rugby guys' hands?"

"Dat ass"

Smile or serious? Bit of a miscommunication...

Gravity: off

Photos courtesy of Siobhan Rosalie.

Why I have trouble with busses as a means of public transportation

This is probably going to be such a bold claim on my part, but I do not care, I want my opinion out in the world.

And, yes, the title is a bit misleading. What I mean by me not viewing busses as public transportation is not exactly what I am saying. I mean busses, in my view, are the lowest of the low in terms of public transit.

I am new to the world of public transportation. I would give myself maybe a week's worth of experience, legitimate experience, and what I have learned from years of transporting myself across cities and from reading up on different forms of transit is that busses are a poor excuse for a real public transportation system. Now, I am not saying that busses are not extremely useful and any transit system is golden without busses, no, they are indeed a necessary part of any decently-planned city, they just represent something bigger and worse than themselves.

Busses drive on roads, right? Well, roads lay the foundation for the personal vehicle, something that I am not too keen about. Yes, I love my Betty White (my car that is an old person's car that drives like a stallion), but cars are one of the deep-seated reasons for my dislike of North America. One of the best examples I can give is this: Los Angeles, at one time, had the foundation for a nearly flawless transit system based on rail, but it was scrapped when cars began to become popular in the States. Instead of a decent rail-based system over the roads, Los Angeles chose to pursue a bus-based transport system and a system of not rail but roads, roads that would shortly lead to the ridiculous congestion of personal vehicles we see daily all over Southern California. Busses are a transport system that promotes that very idea of exhaust fumes and relatively few people per vehicle by just running along roads.

Now, I got into a pretty good discussion about the benefits and detriments of Vancouver today. I, personally, am no fan of Vancouver. I find the urban sprawl gross and an emphasis on the car that leads me to make connections to Los Angeles (though a "true" Vancouverite would apparently tell me that the cities surrounding Vancouver are not, in fact, Vancouver, which I disagree. That is like saying that West Hollywood and Santa Monica are not a part of Los Angeles, which, in the grand scheme of things, they are). Also, I commented on the poor urban transport, to which I found no end of rebuttals: "Look at the bus system!", "We have a decent, regular skytrain.", etc. Well, ok, so there is a grand system of busses that dissects Vancouver and a skytrain that runs along three to four corridors throughout a pretty large city (wait, I meant cluster of cities), but, honestly, that is not the best. An emphasis on busses means an emphasis on roads, which leads to the personal vehicle. And while, yes, the city of Vancouver has relatively few cars, there are still a huge number of cars on the road. For such a green city, it really took me aback. On top of it all, one of the busiest routes in the city, and one of the most logical to tackle almost immediately, is the last of a skytrain connection between UBC and the rest of the system/city. I know that there are over four bus lines that all connect to the Canada Line, but, honestly, taking an over-flowing bus, like the 99, does not really suit me. Taking a slower-than-the-rest-of-traffic bus along a road to finally real some rail is not my idea of a really great public transit system. Once you get the airport-downtown covered, the university (of about 50.000 students) should be a priority.

I know many people disagree with me. Most people I run into absolutely adore Vancouver, and I am not saying that they are wrong, I am just showing people why I am not a fan of busses and why Vancouver's public transit system, while extensive, is not terribly efficient* or the best.

*Efficiency is marked by the movement of people at increasingly high speeds to their destination. Busses, while bringing people to their destinations, are bogged down by surrounding traffic and generally run slower than the cars that surround them. Rail, be it an over-ground or underground, moves markedly faster than any road-sharing vehicle (even the streetcars that I am designing for Palm Springs**)

**The reasons behind that are that streetcars are fun to ride, do offer another option beside buses, and, because of their enjoyment to ride, offer an insight to various other, mostly rail-based, public transportation systems. As Jarrett points out, "[s]treetcars that replace bus lines are not a mobility improvement," they are, though, more fun to ride, attract more ridership, offer a better (and cleaner) quality of ride, among other notes.

http://www.humantransit.org/2009/07/streetcars-an-inconvenient-truth.html

Photos courtesy of Google Images.

I do things in a really weird way...

Yet again, another short post.

So, I am creating the plan for a street-car, rail-based system for the Coachella Valley, and it occurred to me that I am doing it completely and thoroughly backwards. Well, not the plan itself, but myself. Usually, people only go about large plans like this after years of schooling and experience, and here I am, putting lines down on a map with a articles on transportation design and map creation up on my computer next to me.

I really do not know what to say, I am just glad that I have the opportunity to do this and really push the idea that "look, here I am going ahead and just doing this. I am no one special, just someone with an idea. Go ahead and do what you can in the world."

Booooom! Caaaaw!

The First Ever Western Canadian Muggle Quidditch Game


It sounds so much more dramatic than it really was. Actually, no, it was pretty dramatic.

To begin, we woke up at 6am. Really it was 5:30... and it felt like 3:30. The shower I took was probably the most comforting thing I have ever experienced, second only to the shower after returning all muddy and sore.

The night before, César and Anaïk both planned to join and be our fans, but in the morning, Anaïk was the only one to wake up; I knocked on César's door like no other, and I heard a shuffle and a groan, but no answer (we finally got a response when we reached Victoria. At least he got his sleep.). So, it was just Anaïk and I rushing from Totem to the bus loop early in the morning in super dense fog (the fog was getting really intense. The day before, there was an actual wave of fog that hit the campus. I was outside when I turned around to see it come crashing down over the buildings of Totem. In my head, because speaking to myself out loud is weird, and I never do it, I was screaming, "no!! Don't take me!! Ahhhh!" ––I may have over-dramatised this).

We were in the US!

With our excitement muffled from lack of sleep, we boarded that first bus as a mostly complete team–the rugby guys, as we once knew them (they are now Lindl, Daniel, and Lewis... phew, finally got those names),  were not there. Complete with our brooms and new shirts, we sat down and forced away sleep. A bus, a skytrain, and another bus later, we met up with the rugby guys and boarded the ferry, which, to be quite honest, was super exciting–it was foggy (sweet, fog!), on the ocean, boarding a ferry, going to my second city in Canada ever; for a desert rat, it was awesome.

Probably the best sign on the ferry (food)!

Besides my overwhleming hunger and the vacuum noises that arose when I ate my food, nothing of note really happened on the ferry. There were some beautiful cliff faces and islands and much water, but that was all. It was when we got on the double-decker, Victoria-bound bus that got interesting.

UPDATE: My bad, there was something interesting on the ferry: we crossed United States waters on your voyage. That was fun.

See me peeking out?

On the bus, standing in uncomfortably close quarters with Johanne and Russel, we began our trek from Swartz Bay to University of Victoria. –Before I tell the next part, it is important to note that I have pretty bad eyestight, but have not found a decent pair of frames as of yet (yet meaning four years)– As we are making small talk and bonding a bit, my teammates look to me and see a face that I can only describe as pure intrigue followed by enourmous dissappointment. They all looked at me in blank confusion until I told that I swore I had just seen a cow when, in fact, it was really a brown bench with a dog next to it. Yes, I mistook a bench for a cow. It was at that moment, precisely, that we began our earnest search for cows on Vancouver Island. We arrived downtown with no luck, but we did see alpacas, which Johanne mistakenly referred to as alcapis, and some boulders... boulders that resemble sheep that resemble boulders OR a sheep mixed amongst boulders that resemble sheep so that it is not alone OR a flock of sheep... our team still debates whether those were sheep or boulders. My argument is that is is one amongst boulders because I am pretty sure I saw one move, but this is coming from the guy who thinks benches are cows.

On Victoria lines, you "request" a stop.

Map of UVic

Once downtown, we needed to hop on the bus to the university. On the first bus, we paid for our tickets, but were surprised to find that rather than a ticket-like ticket, it was a newspaper-paper print ticket-thing. It was weird. Anyways, on the second bus, which resembled our native Vancouver buses, except with the "stop" light saying "stop requested" (it felt so polite), Michelle, Johanne, Lashmir (spelling is all wrong most likely, story on that later), and I decided to bus surf, yes, bus surf. The Victoria busses are actually so much more fun than our Vancouver ones, they twist and turn and bounce all suddenly, it was great. I swear everyone on that bus thought we were the coolest people around, hootin' and hollerin' and jumping and twisting and falling.

See Erica eating sushi with chop-forks?

We decided to put on our maturity hats once we arrived...which lasted a whole fifteen seconds before we started singing a rousing rendition of several of the "A Very Potter Musical" songs. Aw well, we were having fun.

UPDATE: ...blah, blah, blah, it is late, I am forgetting details, and I am kicking myself for not having this written days ago.

So, we began to play UVic! Exciting stuff. Being frontline beaters, Erica and I were out there first. Let me tell you, our confidence was so, so high, unimaginably so. In other words, we were ready to have our asses handed to us. Yes, the first few minutes following "brooms up!" were crazier and more hectic than Los Angeles during rush hour, but once we got the hang of playing another team, somewhere else, in the day light, we were actually pretty good. Speaking only for myself, I know that I had several moments of stationary ball-holding with a look on my face like "what the hell am I doin-- oh, shit, quaffle!" Also, it is beyond tiring. I, personally, did not want to look weak and ask for a sub after maybe running five times up and down the field, but, hell, it was tiring. I was panting just after the intial bolt to the centre-line; I am not out of shape, but the added boost of adrenaline did not help matters.

They looked so legit.

"Brooms up!"

Once we really got the hang of the game, our team stayed strong. We ended up losing our first two games (no real surprise), but the scores were close. Excluding the snitch points, the first game was 60-50 in our favour, with the second 60-40 in theirs. We were holding our own against them quite well. For the third game, we substituted Zach in as our new seeker, updated the beater strategy to an on-and-off-the-snitch play, and kept it strong. By that point, we all had our positions set, there were some amazing plays had by every single one of our teammates. Actually, Lashmi (spelling - Oh God, I am probably way off), one of our beaters, had at least one awesome shot. First, though, once she got possesion of the bludger and was just ready to throw it, she slipped (perfectly) in the mud. It was probably one of the funniest moments (we all laughed together afterwards). But, after her stumble, she managed to peg the sole chaser on a very-depleted-of-our-own-players-by-our-hoops side of the field, giving possession to Russel, our keeper. It was awesome. In the end, with Erica and I successfully communcating on bludger movements, the chasers and keeper doing something very right, and Zach as our seeker, we won the game 60-50 (90-50 with snitch points). I will always have the memory of our entire team, muddy, torn up, fatigued beyond measure, running, brooms in hand, to tackle Zach for the best snitch grab in all of Muggle Quidditch history (there is no hyperbole in that statement).


Coming off of our first win high, UVic and UBC mingled through a scrimmage against ourselves, which rocked. It got at least one person to play for the first time, and we got to talk to the other team personally, and, let me tell you, they are the friendliest and nicest people ever. The scrimmage was fun and a great way to end the day, and there were some great, great plays during the game. In fact, one chaser from UVic dove through a hoop, almost effectively winning ten points for his team, only falling short because of a perfectly-placed bludger. Also, our team, as of this game, has broken five brooms, three solely at UVic. Probably the best break at UVic (because the best break is the first one for our team as a whole, in which the broom shattered into three pieces like the sword in "Lord of the Rings") was with Russell's broom: Russell was tackled at his leg, which caused him to flip and land on his broom, effectively snapping it. Being a rockstar, he shot up, got a new broom, and ran after that quaffle. It was such a great moment.

And the snitch is released!

Anyways, we got pizza as a team and headed home, which was a terribly long schlep. Muddy, sore, and tired, we stumbled home around 22:30 and promptly fell to a well-deserved night's sleep.

It was one great day. 

Everyone together.

Great coaches and refs!

Oh, and as for the title of this post, we created a new team chant/call-thing. It happened when we shouted-out "THUNDERBIRDS!" and Johanne, jokingly, went "boom-caw", which instantly became a success. We soon began to thunderously yell "BOOOM!!" then followed with a bird-like "CAAW!!", the sound of the ever-so-tough Thunderbird.

This will be another short post...

...but, it is 'zed'.

You pronounce this letter of the alphabet: z, 'zed', not 'zee'.

ex: ex, why, zed; I snap my fingers in a zed formation; Dragon Ball Zed; etc.

That is all.

Bald Eagle/Quidditch

This is going to be a short post, but exciting.

Last Quidditch practice, we were scrimmaging like usual when about half our team looks up to see a bald eagle flying around over us. It was just a small moment but truly amazing.

That is all.