Super Bon!

So we got back Friday evening and after the post-trip decompression, I can definitely say we’ll be back to Ottawa. It was a lovely vacation spot, and there was tons of touristy stuff we didn’t even get to (museums, for instance). By and large, the food was great, though apparently they are used to tourists with bland tastes. Twice we were warned that our food would actually be spicy. Like “you do realize there are jalopenos in this, right?” which of course is why we ordered the thing in the first place. Then again, the “medium” at the Carribbean place was actually knock your socks off hot.

Octopus Books is a real treasure as well. We both loaded up on text. We also managed to buy shoes. Books and shoes seem like the kinds of things you should shop for on vacation. Work was great too, but less interesting for the purposes of blogging.

This post will feature a brief discussion of wildlife we encountered in Ottawa, which seems only appropriate, presented in the format of a vacation slide show.

I’d seen grey and albino squirrels before, but these we saw all over the city. I’d never seen a black squirrel before.

It was really cool to go up on Parliament Hill and see all the stately old buildings. I’m used to massive gothic buildings from my time in Pittsburgh, but these are somehow more ornate. The statue here is, I believe, Alexander MacKenzie, though it may also be some guy named Brown — I don’t remember. The important thing is that someone really needs to clean off his head.

Posted byJonathan SterneAugust 14, 2005Posted inUncategorized3 Comments on Ottawa Wildlife

This is just a short blog post from my heavily-discounted but not exceptionally huge suite in Ottawa. We’re on day 3 (though Monday was a partial day) and missions are being accomplished. The interview went well and my source may well lead me to other interesting people. We are getting a lot of writing done. We have done some touristy stuff, but won’t even come close to the amount of tourism that is clearly possible here. Guess we’ll return next summer to accomplish that mission.

In the meantime, I am posting an erratum published in The Utne Reader, that bastion of self-satisfied bourgeois hippie wannabe faux-leftism that I sometimes enjoy reading anyway. It sort of comments on itself, but it has some kind of poignance concerning Americans’ understandings of Canada. It’s especially choice since the Utne a) acts all enlightened and stuff and b) routinely fetishizes Canada as a bastion of progressiveness.

Oh Canada! In our May/June issue, we made a few errors about our neighbor to the north: In “Maple Leaf Rags,” we incorreectly referred to the newsweekly Maclean’s as “McLean’s” and to the late prime minister Pierre Trudeau as a “premier.” Also, in “Street Librarian,” we mentioned the “Canadian Maritime islands” when we meant the Maritime Provinces, of which two are part of the mainland and only one is an island.

My favorite part is about the Maritime Islands.

After a successful birthday party (many props to our aweseome guests!) and a day of recovery, we are heading off to Ottawa for a week of research, writing and relaxation. That’s not as oxymoronic as it sounds. I might even blog. We’ll see.

New Toy

I figured I might actually want to scan something on my trip, so today I set up my new scanner (a relatively basic Canon LIDE 35) and I’ll be damned if Optical Character Recognition doesn’t actually work. Last time I bought a scanner, it was 1998, SCSI was the fastest interface going, Umax was in business as a profitable company, and OCR was basically a joke. I found the old scanning to be a PITA, though I did include a bunch of images in my dissertation at a time when that was a new and hip thing to do — ie., before cowardice overran univerisites and it became a huge hassle to reproduce images for purposes of fair use. Anyway, it’s been a few years since I’ve used a computer with a working SCSI interface, so the scanner got given away when we left Pittsburgh. Or maybe I sold it for $20 on half.com. I don’t remember. But with all the grants and everything, I thought it was time to give scanning another try. I hooked up my new scanner tonight, installed the software, and then tried the “copy” function. To my amazement, it actually worked. Then I grabbed the top page of a Bourdieu article (Program for the Sociology of Sport) that was sitting on my desk and ran it through the OCR. It actually worked. I guess I just have a childlike fascination with technology or something, but I’m pretty psyched that I will actually be able to use this thing if there are papers for me to scan on my trip. A nice alternative to photocopying and then typing it in.

This just arrived in my mailbox. It’s probably just the right form letter this time, but I’ll take it:

Greetings from Amazon.ca.

Thank you for contacting us to bring this matter to our
attention.

Our goal is to support freedom of expression and to provide
customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find,
discover, and buy any title they might be seeking. We do not
condone censorship, and the situation that you have described does
not represent the opinion of Amazon.ca.

This information has been forwarded to the appropriate party for
investigation. I am very sorry if you have been inconvenienced or
offended in any way.

As a gesture of apology and of goodwill on behalf of Amazon.ca, I
requested a refund of $10.00 to your credit card. [snip]

I am truly sorry that we were not able to fulfill your
expectations for this level of service. I hope that you will
honour us with another opportunity to prove the quality of our
service to you in the future.

Thank you for shopping with Amazon.ca.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

Best regards,

[Name Deleted]
Amazon.ca Customer Service
http://www.amazon.ca

Good for them. I am only slightly disappointed that I will not be designing my Nietzsche/Firestone bookmark.

subject: defective product
re: Order #xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Amazon.ca Customer Service,

My order arrived just fine. However, included with my brand new copy of Judith Wajcman’s Techno Feminism was a “promissory note” for “eternal life” “by the authority of God” for the “forgiveness of sin [presumably mine], public and private through faith [again, presumably mine] in the blood of jesus christ [presumably from inside his body and not purchased on the black market]” [material in brackets added for clarification].

Now I realize that I did order an expressly feminist book. The subtitle of the last chapter is entitled “The Clitoris is a Direct Line to the Matrix,” which might be shocking to someone who believes in transubstantiation and has never considered alternative narratives, like those of science fiction. Am I to conclude that someone in your employ thought that my godless feminist reading choice needed some balance and kindly offered me a few bible quotes to liven up my day?

This is quite an interesting policy. I would be curious to know if Amazon is concerned about rounding out the tastes of all its readers. For a fee (naturally), I could design a bookmark containing aphorisms from Friedrich Nietzsche about the death of god and Shulmith Firestone about the superfluidity of men for including with any devotional literature or new chapters in the “Left Behind” series you might happen to sell. Of course, perhaps you are already doing this and have hired another consultant, in which case, I applaud you but would ask how much you are paying. I might be able to give you a better price.

Alternately, you might consider training your employees not to proselytize on your dime.

Sincerely,
–Jonathan Sterne, Montreal

Sometime in the next couple months, I’m going to do an overhaul to the blog site. It might be mostly cosmetic, but I know I need to add rss and I’m going to take a moment and at least consider any number of other changes. I’m also going to look into some kind of comment spam filter, though there haven’t been any problems of that sort lately. I know I need to arrange it so that it’s easy to add links (so I can like to you, dear reader). I’ve thought about just paying livejournal or blogspot and mirroring, too, so that’s a possibility as well.

If you have any requests or suggestions, now would the be the time to make them — here or in email.