Cover this book!

An antidote, perhaps, to the chick-lit covers?

Penguin Books UK has begun selling six of its classic books with blank, art paper covers so readers can draw their own. They're calling it My Penguin, and Jane Austen is present in the form of Emma (though none are evident in the gallery on the website).

I'm not sure what this will do for sales, but I'm glad that Penguin is acknowledging that people do indeed judge a book by its cover. One of my literary/academic pet peeves are all the books about the Chinese-Canadian or Chinese-American experience that use stereotypical images of China or "Chinese-ness" in the cover art. (Yes, Amy Tan's books are repeat offenders.) Another are the covers of the otherwise-excellent Broadview Press editions of Austen's novels, which use photographs that are anachronistically at least 50 years later than the Regency period. When you're teaching these books to first-year students, you hope for as much historical accuracy as possible, and a cover like that is not going to help.

An Open Letter to Sales Clerks

Dear Customer Service Representatives of the world:

Please check credit card signatures.

A few weeks ago I was the victim of credit card fraud. Someone somehow got my credit card information (even though I didn't lose my card) and spent over $1,000 on gas and shoes in Ontario before the card was cancelled (oddly, roughly $100 USD was also spent at what M/C Customer Service tells me was a Hungarian airline).

As a result of this violation, I have been watching sales clerks ever since, noting whether or not you (CSRs of the world) ever compare the signature on a card with the signature on the slip. Guess what?

Not many do.

Credit card companies spend millions on advanced security measures, on holograms and extra security codes—only to be undermined by the human factor, by the salesperson who does not take two seconds to compare signatures. The breakdown in the system happens at the frontline, at the point of transaction. I count on you to make sure no one is taking advantage of me, and you let me down. This makes me angry and frustrated.

And retail companies shouldn't be let off the hook either. They are the ones who ultimately pay for fraudulent transactions; they lose money by not being vigilant, but don't seem to enforce the practice of checking.

If you hate your job and want to undermine the company you work for, fine. Just don't do it at the expense of my time, my stress levels, and my money.

Please, this holiday season, just check the signature.

Sincerely,

Mary

New-look blog...

... same great taste.

Switched to a new-look blog not because I wanted a change, but because trying to adjust the font size in the previous template in Blogger Beta resulted in weird proportions. It just didn't work.

New blog is pretty (Blogger Beta lets you customize colours) but I'm still having trouble with some of the widget functions which, frankly, don't function, specifically moving around the post-components.

Times like these I wish that either a) I knew enough html to build my own blog or b) Adobe made blogging software.

The Durian Post

Blame Anna for this stinky-fruit-themed post, as she's been uploading some old videos to YouTube, including this one of Tait and Daorcey trying durian, a notoriously stinky south-east Asian fruit. Hers is not the only durian-tagged video on YouTube either—it looks like there are just over 100 others, including this really cute one. Go figure.

Durian is a heavy, spiky fruit that smells like high heaven when opened (I've heard it compared to aspirin (by Anna) and to cat pee. Apparently, every year it is also responsible for deaths in Asia due to over-consumption and, um, gravity (according to my friend James F). While he lived in Thailand, poor James' apartment was located next to a durian stand.

And how does durian taste? The only thing I remember from my own, sole taste test was that the fruit was too cold. Apparently, it's quite tasty (it would have to be, to compensate for the smell). Anyone interested in tasting but not trying to open the fruit can buy durian ice cream from Phil's Forbidden Flavours on 17th Ave in Calgary, as well as from T&T Chinese Superstore (Phil supplies them).

Durian, incidentally, is a significant part of Larissa Lai's novel Salt Fish Girl (she's the one who compares the smell to cat pee). The novel also makes great use of the pungent smell of salt fish, which, frankly, I love (the fish, not the smell).

And yes, I am well aware of the irony of a blogger who can't smell writing a scent-centric (scentric?) post.

End of an era?

Back in Calgary for Reading Week and Christine and I go out looking for a 24-hour Tim Horton's at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday. The first one we pass is dark, so we move on. The next one, in Westhills, is lit up, but the door is locked. Then I notice the sign on the door informing customers of a new policy where 24-hour Tim's are now open 24-hours in Drive-Thru terms only. The "dining rooms" (their term) are closed from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Is this a new, country-wide policy (non-AB readers, hollaback!)? Is this a result of not being able to hire enough people? Did all that money that paid for the snazzy in-store TVs leave too little for salaries and paycheques? Where will we now go for late night-sustenance and chatting in a well-lit, clean place where we won't get kicked out?

Hopefully this is only temporary (the sign did not say one way or the other). If not, it's the end of an era. I have fond memories of late-night hanging out in Tim Horton's in Calgary and Hamilton just chatting and destressing. This could be a change worse than switching to frozen-shipped goods and brewed tea.

Grand Theft Mario

This one's for all you Grand Theft Auto fans out there (I remember one autumn where I didn't see much of Nat, or Daorcey, or Jeff...) and to those of us who watched you play and endured your endless jokes about running over prostitutes (Nat). Good times.

Ever wonder what would happen if Super Mario took the wrong turn and ended up in Vice City? Wonder no more.

Technological benefits

Realized tonight that we live in a golden age of information when I tried to get a key snippet of dialogue from a VHS tape of Citizen Kane for my lesson plan (the DVDs were all rented out). Dialogue in the movie is fast, clippy, and often overlaps, meaning that I had to pause and rewind the tape about six times to get the full exchange, which was only about a minute long. With a DVD, however, I could have paused and played more precisely (there's some lag with tape), or (even better) put on the subtitles. Sure, sometimes the subtitles aren't 100% accurate—but they definitely would have helped.

Of course, this is the same technology that won't let me tape two key snippets from episodes of the Simpsons that visually reference Kane ("Rosebud" [aka the Bobo episode] and "Marge Gets a Job" for those who care), which I have already ranted about.