Vavroom's Bits & Bobs

Do They Not Have Actors In The US?

I was curious about an actor in a US tv show - the guy who plays Jax in Sons of Anarchy. So I looked him up. He's not American, he's English. Another non-American actor holding a lead in a big, popular American TV series. Do they not have enough good actors in the US that they need to rely on so many "imports"? Not that I mind, not at all, I just find this utterly amusing.

Here is a quick and incomplete list of some shows using non-American actors in their leads, playing American characters.

• Sons of Anarchy - Jax - Charlie Hunnam (British)
• Fringe - Dr. Walter Bishop - John Noble (Australian)
• Fringe - Olivia Dunham - Anna Torv (Australian)
• Fringe - Peter Bishop - Joshua Jackson (Canadian)
• True Blood - Sookie Stackhouse - Anna Paquin (New Zealander)
• True Blood - Bill Compton - Stephen Moyer (British)
• True Blood - Eric Northman - Alexander Skarsgård (Swedish)
• House - Dr. House - Hugh Laurie (British)
• The Walking Dead - Rick Grimes - Andrew Lincoln (British)
• The Mentalist - Patrick Jane - Simon Baker (Australian)
• The X-Files - Dana Scully - Jillian Anderson (British)
• Without a Trace - Jack Malone - Anthony LaPaglia (Australian)
• Without a Trace - Vivian Johnson - Marianne Jean-Baptiste (British)
• Californication - Karen - Natascha McElhone (British)
• Lost - Penelope Widmore - Sonya Walger (British)
• Nip/Tuck - Julia McNamara - Joely Richardson (British)

Edmonds 1914 Cookbook Cook-Off

The information about the Edmonds 1914 Cookbook Cook-Off has been moved to The Wheeling Gourmet. Come check it out!

Je me racrapoutis

Je voulais savoir quel serait le meilleur équivalent anglais pour l'expression "je me racrapoutis". Ayant demandé sur Twitter, les quelques réponses que j'ai reçues disaient ne pas connaître ce mot.

Je crois que c'est peut-être une variation familiale du mot écrapoutir.

Ce mot est assez utilisé dans la famille du côté de ma mère. Je vois bien où on serait allé de écrapoutir à acrapoutir. Puis pour faire bonne mesure, on ajoute le re, et on fini avec racrapoutir.

Le mot écrapoutir est apparement d'origine poitevine, en usage jusque qu'au 17^e siècle. Utilisé pour dire écraser, ou accroupir. Que ça aie survécu au Québec ne me surprend pas. Radio-Canada donne une liste de mot à employer au lieu d'écrapoutir, car il faut apparement utiliser cela seulement dans les conversations familières:

• écraser
• aplatir
• piler
• anéantir
• détruire
• broyer
• briser
• triturer

Y'a même une page sur Facebook pour la survie du mot écrapoutir!!!

Avec ça, je suis toujours pas sûr d'un bon équivalent en anglais... :)

[Edit]: On vient de suggèrer le mot racrapoter, en usage en Belgique. Si on prend le sense recroqueviller, on commence à voir aussi: ratatiner, tordre, rapetisser. Tout cela est bien semblable.

An Old Man, His Dog, And The Newspaper

For years, most mornings on my way to work, I used to see an old man walking his dog. The dog, a spaniel of some sort, always carried a news paper in his mouth. I saw them walk together on the same stretch of street, at about the same time. The dog always looked pleased as punch, wagging its tail.

I always thought this was rather fantastic. They obviously had a routine and enjoyed it very much.

One morning, I just had to pull my car over, get out of the car and tell the man that I'd seen him often and I thought it was a great thing. He said his kids had gotten him the dog shortly after his wife died, and they'd been inseparable since.

I haven't seen this man for weeks, but I thought it was just because of slight schedule differences. This morning, I learned through a colleague that the man died a couple months ago, after his dog passed away. He was apparently in his late 80's.

This is an incredibly sad story that has gotten to me. At the same time, it is an incredibly good story about a man and a dog.

I didn't know him - but I will remember him and his dog for a long time. I will remember how happy they both looked on these morning walks.

I've had enough of "If You Like This Pls RT"

I've just unfollowed @ProPhoto101 on Twitter. Not big deal, everyone follows and unfollows people, it's not like it's a major event. But I want to take a couple minutes to explain why I unfollowed him.

One reason is that he doesn't interact at all. Twitter is used as a broadcast-only medium, and frankly, I prefer interactions and relationship building. But that's a post for another day :)

The other reason is that most of ProPhoto101's tweets include "if you like this please retweet". I find that beyond annoying. So I just cut my ties with him. Note that I'm not picking on this guy out of personal grudge, it could have been anyone showing that same behaviour.

Retweets, or RT, are powerful things. It's a way one's message can spread in a so-called "viral" manner. With just one RT, your tweet could be seen by thousands of people who don't know you. This can be substantial exposure. But is it *good* exposure? I'm not convinced. There's no doubt retweets are a powerful engagement tool..

I RT stuff regularly. I do so when I find value in a tweet and I think my followers might find the content interesting. I very rarely RT something when people specifically seek an RT. The strength and nature of the content determines whether or not the tweet deserves to be passed on - not the begging.

In fact, I'm a bit like Edward Lewis who says:

Reverse psychology. That's exactly how the Please Retweet This line works for me. I probably won't RT anything that you beg to be Retweeted.

I'm not alone in really disliking the chronic RT requesters. On Geoff Livingston's site, a post and comments from last week discuss this at length. The consensus there seems to be that:

• There's nothing wrong with asking an occasional RT of a specific, more influencial person, but that one shouldn't continually beg for retweets.
• If you build relationships with twitter followers, people are more likely to RT your content.

Sooo, what's *your* take on people who continually ask to have their stuff retweeted?

Not Following Anyone on Twitter - They Got It Right

With all that is happening with the Queensland floods, I became aware of an Aussie company that uses Twitter mainly for broadcast. TransLink SEQ is the Queensland government's public transportation website.

They are updating their twitter stream very regularly - broadcasting information about service interruptions, etc. They had just a hair over 5,000 followers when I wrote this. They followed nobody back.

It is generally seen as bad form to have a bunch of followers and not follow anyone back. I think they got it right though. It is worth noting that they *do* interact with people who directly ask them questions. They just don't try to build social media relationships. That's not how *I* like to use Twitter, but if they are going to be using the service to broadcast news, then let them be honest about that and follow no-one.

 

We're Sorry, eMusic Is Not Available In Your Country

I was looking at purchasing some music from the John Butler Trio. Recently discovered them and I love their style. Their site makes the music available for download only via iTunes. For a variety of reasons, I don't like using iTunes. Among other things, it's not Linux friendly (yes I know you can use it under WINE but it's wonky), and it's very limiting - you can't manage music acquired in iTunes any other way than through iTunes (I have >15GB of MP3s, all legally acquired).

Someone on Twitter suggested I should check out Amazon.com - easy to download and they even have a bunch of free music available for download. If you're in the United States. They block anyone outside that country. This is not new.

What *is* new is that emusic.com now also blocks non-US countries from getting music from them. I purchased a lot of music from their site. But I went there today and found the following message:

We're sorry, eMusic is not available in your country.

We know everyone everywhere loves music and we want to bring the world of music to everyone. But we have to play by the rules and there are many when it comes to the global distribution of music.

Unfortunately, due to licensing restrictions we are unable to offer service in your country at this time. We understand that you are currently in New Zealand (your IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx).

So, there you go, one more avenue closed off for people outside of the
United States to legally acquire music in electronic format.

Why Bother To Get Checked For Cancer Since We Can't Get Treatment For It?

MidCentral District Health Board sent out letters to some of their cancer patients over the holiday period, announcing that they were cutting their treatment. No. More. Chemotherapy...

Yes, that's right. The DHB is stopping treatment/chemotherapy on a wide range of cancers, including for some people already under treatment. New patients will not go on waiting lists - they'll be referred back to their GP. And one might wonder how useful it is to go see your GP when you've been diagnosed with cancer? What can your GP do? It doesn't matter how good and willing your GP is, they are not equipped nor trained to treat cancer.

Apparently, MidCentral has 5 oncologist positions, but haven't been able to fill 2 of them. I'd be curious to know how much of the time of the other 3 positions is spent on research rather than treatment.

According to the Manawatu Standard, here are some of the cancers that won't be treated:

• Prostate Cancer
• Melanoma
• Cervical Cancer
• All adult soft tissue sarcoma
• 10 other types of cancers

There are many public campaigns increasing public awareness of the risks of cancer, including melanomas. Every year at work, there is a free mole "spotting" clinic. There's even an early detection program called "Molemap" - though this is not a free service. Similarly, NZ's National Screening Unit says that "Prostate cancer is recognised as an important health issue for New Zealand men". Clearly the NZ Government believes there's a risk with prostate cancers and melanomas.

At the same time, the DHB is saying that they don't have enough funding to treat people who have prostate cancers, melanomas, and several other types of cancer. The funding for the DHB comes from the NZ Government. Am I alone in seeing something that's not quite right here?

TVNZ reports that "health authorities say the cancers which will not now be treated are the ones least likely to respond to therapy."

So because it's less likely to respond as well to therapy, they'll just not treat at all. That is not right. They are playing God, deciding who gets to have a chance at life, and who doesn't. It's not murder, no. But I'd be tempted to call it manslaughter - gross disregard for human life.

Why should we get tested for melanoma, prostate cancer, cervical cancer, etc, when there's not going to be any treatment available?

To say I'm angry would be an understatement. I also feel completely powerless about it. Despite calls for public meetings, nothing's likely to change.

On MidCentral DHB's website, nothing at all about this.

Happy New Year!

When Marketing Has Negative Results

Every once in a while, I feel like having fish 'n chips for dinner. Here in Palmerston North, I used to go to Stad's. But it's gone downhill fast. I tried a new-to-me shop tonight, but it let itself down because of the packaging.

More specifically, it's the bit of sticky tape/label they used to keep the wrapping shut that let them down. Big time.

It is, I imagine, a marketing ploy - the label is printed with "McCain - done it again". Proudly advertising they use McCain products.

Except that I won't knowingly purchase or eat McCain. There have been a few stories of nasty stuff found in packs of frozen McCain products in New Zealand. Specifically, a frozen mouse and a dirty rag. And the company's response was less than positive. Right...

So if the take-away joint is using "McCain" labels, it tells me that a) they are using McCain products and b) using frozen products.

As stated above, I'm not interested in purchasing McCain products. And I am not interested in frozen fish. Or chips, for that matter. I guess there aren't too many shops that make their own fries from scratch, so I'll live with that. But the fish... It's got to be fresh!

One of the reasons I stopped going to Stad's was because their fish became greasy, and the frying oil smelled stale. And they started slapping a "McCain - done it again" label on their wrappers...

Tonight's take-away joint served ok fish. It wasn't greasy. But the fish was very thin. And they served me McCain. I'm unlikely to go there again.

Obviously I could go to another store who won't be using the label, but serving McCain products anyway and I would be none the wiser. But if I have a choice, and know what product I'm getting, I am not buying that stuff. #marketingfail

Idle Polution

I noticed a DHL courier van was stopped by our building, with the engine idling. The van was there for about 15 minutes. This is longer than usual, but courier vans are there on average for 7 minutes, two or three times a day. Seems like almost nothing, but it accumulates.

• How many stops does that one van do in one day?
• How many courier vans do this?
• How many total hours of engines idling are there?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but it seems to me that it's way too much. Apparently a UPS driver can make from 130 to 150 stops in a day. This seems a bit much. It would give each stop only 3 minutes, including driving, in a regular 8 hour work day.

Let's be conservative with our numbers: A driver does on average 4 stops per hour, 7 hours per day, and leaves the engine idling for 5 minutes. That's over two hours of leaving the engine idling... How many drivers in Palmerston North? How many drivers in all of New Zealand? My numbers are total guesses, I don't really know. But it seems like the total time of courier van idling is an incredibly high and destructive. What's wrong with turning the engine off when you're stopping?