The Unknown Studio

I received an email from Geoff yesterday explaining the ongoing harassment he’s had to suffer since he graduated from our alma mater, the University of Alberta, in 2003. It begins: “So ever since graduating back in like 2003, I keep getting notices from the U of A that I owe a $5 library fine. I chuckled at this folly until this week, when I decided to take action and sent the following to their online appeals system [...]”

I wish to appeal my $5.00 late charge at the Sci Tech library. I don’t have any excuse for this charge; rather, I am appealing because maintaining this fine is costing you too much.

I apparently incurred this fine in 2003, which is also the last year that I attended the U of A.  In the 4 and a half years since, I have been receiving a quarterly statement in the mail reminding me of this grim financial burden. Each time you mail me this notice, it costs the University 52 cents. By now, the U of A has spent $9.36 of some poor student’s tuition money on my $5.00 fine. And this is solely on postage. What about the cost of the printing, the envelope, and the lost time required to administer your relentless collections juggernaut? Surely you are now pushing the $15.22 mark, depending on how well you negotiate your bulk paper discounts.

And all of this is to say nothing of the toll that your oversized envelopes and reminder slips take on the environment. For shame, Library Services. Your actions speak louder than the students in Rutherford South.

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Check this bit from Wired:

[Yesterday's] release of Bully: Scholarship Edition on the Wii and Xbox 360 has a group of teachers up in arms over developer Rockstar Games’ attempts to market violence.

While all Rockstar releases generate some amount of controversy, this latest spat is most notable for the fact that the title already generated almost identical controversy when it was initially released on the PlayStation 2 in Oct. 2006.

Now, we all agree that bullying sucks. But these groups getting up in arms over a videogame will do nothing except maybe get a bit of publicity.

These groups MUST focus their energy on attacking root causes to solve bullying problems in schools. They will never be able to prevent Rockstar from making violent videogames, nor should they. It’s up to parents to monitor what kinds of vids their kids are playing, TV shows they’re watching, ill shit they’re getting involved in, all to ensure that the little douches don’t turn into complete assholes.

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I spent about $600 last January on a pair of skis, some poles, and bindings. I didn’t hit the slopes at all in 2007. And I’ve only skied three days this year. But man, oh man, do I ever need to get at least seven more good days in.

This past weekend, I went down to Kicking Horse with Fish, my brother Josh, and a big posse of people. The trip was arranged through Backside Tours, a company based out of Edmonton that organizes tours focused on balancing the party with the riding (as opposed to just focusing on drinking, which is what many of the other tour companies are known for). We stayed in some unbelievable accomms: Whispering Pines condos. We had ten people in our unit, and each of those people got to sleep in a nice bed, enjoy a private hot tub, eat in and a huge kitchen and chill in the comfy chairs of a big living room. We also played our fair share of drinking games.

Sunny, clear skies, calm nights and warm temperatures made sure we didn’t waste anytime: good runs, a few tumbles, and clean, fresh mountain air. I wish I wasn’t home. Must take advantage of the rest of winter. I recommend you do the same.

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Even though I deleted my Facebook account a good long while ago, I’m thinking of re-registering. While I was getting a perverse kick out of being on the fringes of what my close network of friends were doing, it’s turned to something of an inconvenience. I miss out on old friends coming back to town, and I’m far less informed about what’s happening with people’s day-to-day—I’m a busy guy, and like it or not, Facebook enabled me to better stay in touch with people.

I still have qualms with the privacy implications of the system, and whether or not I want people to know what I’m up to, but there are ways around that. Scotty, my roommate, isn’t on Facebook either, but he said he’s thinking of signing up. “I’ve boycotted it long enough,” he told me this afternoon. “It’s become inconvenient to not be on it.”

But there are, of course, other more complicated reasons that make me think I should stay away. Stupid as it may sound, the big one is pride. The I-told-you-sos I expect to have lobbed at me are plentiful. I would probably NYAH someone was well, if they returned with their tail between their legs. I know a few people who’ve left and comeback: Jorge and Fish come to mine. But I cannot seem to fully buy in to being easily connected to people again.

I’m going to think about it over the next few weeks, but I know that as people leave for the summer, Facebook will enable me to stay connected. And I’ve noticed already there are some people with whom I’m not longer speaking simply because it isn’t convenient.

I should probably feel worse about what that says about my laziness than about people saying “I told you so.”

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