Control Freaks

Everyone knows that the car you drive is considered to be a personal statement. That’s why there are like 600 different models of cars on the road available in a rainbow of colours. And then there is the constellation of overpriced aftermarket parts with which to rice up your ride.

I’ve being doing a lot of sitting in my car in traffic lately and it has come to my attention that how you drive your car is also a bold statement of who you are - perhaps more telling than how you actually behave in actual interpersonal interactions.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of public transit has always been to convince people to leave their cars at home and they admit that it’s not easy. People love their expensive planet killing cars in large part because it’s the one place where they can feel that they are in control - of the music, the temperature, the speed and ultimately, where they are going. You don’t get this in a shared home, in the office, at the mall, outdoors and for the most part in life. This is probably also why savings aside the HOV lanes are pretty empty – the daily commute is the one place you don’t have to make compromises.

To come back on topic in the safe feeling and empowering environment of their automobile people should be expected to act more like how they really feel rather than how they think they are supposed to behave. In most places you might expect this to mean a lot of aggressive drivers and as a former bicycle courier I can tell you that you do get a lot of them and they tend to drive the same types of cars and minivans - lots of psychopaths out there in minivans.

In the GTA this has helped me to feel some sympathy for my fellow residents. Probably 80% of the drivers in the GTA drive like madmen and madwomen when they are on the highway but then when they get off the highway on the streets they drive like the absolute last thing in the world they would ever want to do is get where they are going and out of the car back into a world totally out of their control.

Winter's coming

Once upon a time I thought my shed was a rough looking piece of work but now I have my winter shelter built and the shed is looking pretty good. In our defense the winter shelter is made of scrap and intended to be a temporary shelter.

It’s pretty chilly out now so I’m getting to that point of the year when I’m looking forward to the snow and the snowshoeing. And this year I’ll have a place to go snowshoeing and boiling up without the need for elaborate planning to evade the authorities.

We hung around in Trenton visiting friends on Halloween. It’s the first time since moving to TV land that I’ve actually witnessed a TVesque Halloween. There were hundreds of kids swarming the neighbourhood in all manner of costumes. Even a house down the street providing scary noises (quite a creepy soundtrack of screams actually). In the previous decade, everywhere I’ve lived I’ve seen between ten and zero trick or treaters.

Bread and circuses

We’re all familiar with the old roman quote about the bread and circuses. My recent gluten experiences say this may be truer than even they realized. Basically I have come to the conclusion that foods containing gluten should be reserved for periods when they are needed to avoid starvation. Having been largely gluten free for several months now and while I am pretty certain I’m not celiac I can definitely feel the difference when I eat something with gluten in it (most recently a too tempting piece of birthday cake). A difference that lasts for a couple of days. And it’s not a good kind of difference.

My point is that while grains are wonderful for their ability to be stored between the gluten and the acidification they should not really be a first second or third choice on the menu. Their chief benefits are for the elites in a centralized reciprocity social system and for populations that periodically risk starvation. So for those who consider the Paleo-diet to be too XXXetremeXXX I recommend taking a month off from gluten. Some of you may be surprised.

Of course you’ll benefit at least from the near elimination of processed foods that is caused by gluten. Of course, you could buy the needlessly overpriced gluten free processed food if you really hate cooking.