Nathaniel Christopher

I’m just old enough to remember the days when computer games, programs, and the like were stored on those god-awful 5 1/4 inch discs. Data storage technology has improved with time and I can’t remember the last time and I really don’t miss the computer’s B drive. Those discs didn’t hold much, they were awkward to transport, and really easy to wreck. I don’t think I’ve actually used a 5 1/4 inch disc since 1993 or so.

Housemate happens to have a lot of computer stuff, some of it is even in use! Not too long ago I stumbled upon a 5 1/4 drive in his bedroom amongst the computer stuff that was not in use and thought it would be interesting to see if I could get it to work on Windows 7. This is what I’m using:

AMD Dual Core Kuma 7850 with 4 gigs of ram
Two terabyte hard drive
ATI Radeon 4870 one gigabyte
MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard

Anyways, here’s the video!

Well, I guess now is a good a time as any to pull this photo out of the archives. It was taken in about 1983. I think I look like Kim Jong Il… Housemate says I don’t.

“Firstly, your clothes are different colours,” he tells me. “Secondly your hair hasn’t been styled into a bouffant by someone who will get executed if they put a hair out of place!”

What do you think? Do I look like Kim Jong Il in this photo?

Housemate rudely woke me up at approximately 3:42 this morning. For shame!

The volume and intensity of his outbursts led me to believe something terrible had transpired. I thought he’d been robbed, received terrible news about a death, or bombed by the United States.

But no, it was just a power outage. It happens about once a year here. No big deal. I did what I could to make the best of it. Here I am sitting on the coffee table at 4:18 a.m.

Some heavy winds somewhere in Burnaby knocked out power in my neighbourhood until approximately 9 when my Kenwood stereo started blaring my fabulous Sheryl Crow CD “Tuesday Night Music Club”.

Here’s a tree that went down in North Burnaby during the storms.

I found some birthday candles and put them in this silver ashtray tray that I bought at a yard sale back in Nanaimo in 1999. The woman I bought it from smelled like pee.

The candles provided some light for me and the cat who didn’t seem phased by what Housemate considers to be a major disruption.

I felt the need to sort of make the event kind of special. So, I dug out the bag of cat nip, dumped it on the back of a report about the history of the Spanish Empire in British Columbia and let Khan go to town.

And finally, here’s another shot of Khan being unaffected by a power outage.

I love Parks and Recreation and tonight’s episode brought out my inner geek. I had nothing to do tonight so I decided to spend my evening nitpicking the hell out of a show I love.

“Oh hey Ben,” says Leslie at the start of the episode. “Have you seen my complete collection of all 193 national flags? Oh! Here they are.”

I happen to have a pause button and way too much time on my hands so I took a closer look at her flags and noticed that many of them are not, in fact, national flags. She’s definitely padding her collection with sub-national flags!

Since there approximately 190 something sovereign nation states and 194 that are members or observers of the United Nations I assume that she is referring to sovereign nation states in her “193 national flag” comment rather than a more loose definition that might include historic or partially recognised nations.

I’ve taken a bunch of screen captures and labelled the suspect banners.

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The Faroe Islands, located between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, are a self governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Gibraltar is a small British Overseas Territory located on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. The Netherlands Antilles was an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1954 until 2010 when it was dissolved in favour of two new constituent countries as well as special municipalities.

The flag on the bottom left appears to be a British blue ensign with a bit of yellow in it.  The coat of arms is concealed so it could be one of several British Overseas Territories. The Royal Standard of Scotland (a constituent country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) was historically used by the King of Scots and today is only authorised for use by a limited group of people and organisations.

Aruba is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands that split away from the Netherlands Antilles in the ’80s.

Take note of the distinctive flag of Greenland directly in front of Jerry’s head. Greenland, located in the North Atlantic between Canada and Iceland, is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark.

Here at the model United Nations one of the students appears to represent Libya. The flag they use, however, has since been replaced with a pre-1969 flag. The green field flag, used from 1969 until 2011, was the only national flag with just one colour.

The flag on the left is that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which is an intergovernmental military alliance.

The flag on the right appears to be a blue ensign defaced with a white disc which was included on all the blue ensign flags of British Overseas Territories before 1999 when the British Ministry of Defence removed them to make flag identification easier. The most notable flag of that description is probably the pre-1997 flag of Hong Kong. So that’s my best guess.

One thing that impressed me about the episode was the high representation of Canadian flags including the national flag as well as the flags of six out of 10 provinces. Here are the flags of Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland.

Here’s the flag for the Canadian province of New Brunswick as well the Canadian flag.

Behind Leslie stands the controversial “Rising Sun” flag of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. It still  has negative connotations to many countries of East Asia that were colonised by Japan in the early 20^th century.

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And here’s a flag for a nation that was actually booted out of the United Nations in 1971! Taiwan (or the Republic of China)  is a sovereign nation state that has unofficial relations with most world nations. Formal diplomatic relations, however, are limited to only 23 nations as Mainland China will not trade with any nation that recognises Taiwan.

I’m not sure if these flags, set up in the high school gymnasium, are part of Leslie’s collection. Here we have the flags of two former nations including: The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).

Leslie has a flag of The Turks and Caicos Islands behind her desk. The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British Overseas Territory located in the Caribbean.

Here are the flags for the Canadian provinces of  Nova Scotia and Quebec as well as the Ulster Banner which was the flag of the Government of Northern Ireland from 1953 until it was dissolved in 1972

Finally, here is a screen capture of the model United Nations Security Council which erroneously includes England, a constituent country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

Emily Carr (1871-1945) was one of British Columbia’s best-known artists and my brother Gino looks just like her see:

Here’s a video about Emily:

And another video that Gino did about media in Nanaimo:

I’m a huge geek when it comes to history. I especially love British Columbian history so when I was in Kelowna last week I thought I’d track down the grave of the one of British Columbia’s most colourful and influential historic figures.

Peter Gzowski described W.A.C. Bennett as “the man who for the 20 years he served as premier was British Columbia and in the hearts and minds of many people still is.” Gzowski spoke those words in 1977 and I think they still hold true to this day.

Bennett served as premier (or prime minister) under the conservative and populist BC Social Credit banner from 1952 until 1972 – the longest tenure of any premier.

He oversaw rapid development of British Columbian industry and infrastructure. Among his accomplishments he nationalised the ferry system, expanded post-secondary education, and created BC Hydro, a public electric utility. The W.A.C. Bennett Dam and the W.A.C. Library at Simon Fraser University are both named in his honour.

Most deceased premiers are buried in Victoria and their grave markers are usually indistinguishable from those on surrounding plots. Bennett’s memorial, however, is quite ostentatious.

Standing next to W.A.C. Bennett's tombstone.	The tombstones for W.A.C. and May Richards Bennett.
May Bennett She was a very strong but quiet lady, very family oriented, known and loved by thousands of people across the province. She wasn't one who sought the limelight.	W.A.C. Bennett He loved British Columbia with a passion and raised her, like a child to maturity in the family of Canada
Plots for sale on one of W.A.C. Bennett's grave markers.	Bennett Memorial Columbaria

His grave site is marked with a large tombstone standing approximately 1.5 metres (about 5 feet). The tombstone is surrounded by a small park which includes six above ground monuments as well as a memorial wall. The two above ground monuments in front of the tombstone, which loosely resemble coffin lids, are fronted with markers for both Bennett and his wife May Richards Bennett.

The grave site, which has been developed and marketed as a centrepiece of the Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery, pays tribute to Bennett’s free market ideology. For $2,110 you can have your ashes interned in the monument over Bennett’s grave.

These days the B.C. Social Credit are largely inactive so there’s little hope of ever voting them back into government again. You can, however, spend the rest of eternity with W.A.C. Bennett in this last plot of Social Credit dirt.

Today I was checking out the sites in Downtown Kelowna when I happened up on the Occupy Kelowna demonstration.

“It’s about giving 99 per cent of the people a voice,” said Brandy McNeill who is one of two 24 hour demonstrators. “We all have issues to bring to the table so let’s discuss them.”

She says their discussions with the city have gotten to the point of “quibbling” and that they are “just bullying” the protestors at this point. She says demonstrators are allowed to sleep in chairs during the day, but not if they are sitting in a reclining position or covered in blankets.

Brandy McNeill at the Occupy Kelowna protest

She says that the city has restricted them to a patch of dirt adjacent to a city park from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. at which point they are required to move their tents, signage, and chairs to the sidewalk of a nearby monument before moving back to the dirt.

“We have a Charter right to peaceful assembly,” she says. “And I think the Charter takes precedence over a by-law.

While the number of protestors is low at the moment she says they are receiving support from the community in the form of coffee, tea, donuts, food, signatures on a petition, and honks from passing motorists.

The demonstrators have received some unlikely support from a bus of Taiwanese tourists who were taking photos of the Kelowna Sails monument.

Kelowna Sails

“When they were taking photos we removed our signs so they could take photos of the monument without obstruction,” she says. “But then stopped us and told us to leave them because they support our movement.”

Taiwanese tourists at Occupy Kelowna

For more information on Occupy Kelowna please visit their Facebook group.

I’m in Kelowna this week writing a story. It’s a beautiful city with a lot of nice people. But yeah, I really wish the darn radio station would refrain from subjecting me to their frequencies. Bah!

I’m staying at a hotel on the main street of Kelowna. When I checked into my hotel on Sunday my ears were assailed by a ceaseless torrent of underwhelming top 40 stuff being broadcast by 99.9 Sun FM.

I determined that it wasn’t coming from my room, another balcony, or a sidewalk pub but outdoor speakers affixed to the exterior of the radio station located down the block from my hotel. Here’s a view of my hotel from the radio station:

And a view from the other direction:

“Oh yeah, we get tons of complaints about that,” said the front desk lady who seemed to share my frustration. “Our manager is going to talk to them about that as this is not good for our business.”

After hearing “Fireflies” for what seemed like the third time in the span of a day I roused myself out of bed and marched over to the radio station.  I knocked loudly on the glass door but received no response. The office appeared to be empty which made me think that the broadcast might be automated.

Here are the offending speakers:

The next day I called the radio station to complain and the girl who answered the phone curtly told me that that broadcast falls within noise bylaws. So, I phoned the bylaw office which happens to be under the jurisdiction of the RCMP.

“Ah, Sun FM,” said the person who answered the phone at the RCMP without me even telling her what station. “We have a file on them. There’ve been, let’s see, three noise complaints with those speakers this month.”

She told me that the staff person who was responsible for that file was away, so if I wanted to complain I’d have to wait. Oy!

Finally, I called Ian MacKinnon, one of the Sun FM radio hosts and personalities and all around awesome guy who sympathized with my bitching and said he’d turn it down if he had access to the controls.

“You’re not the first person to say that,” he said. “It’s basically just to play that station,” he told me. “There are three stations in the building and we like to rotate the three stations. It’s Meant to have music downtown not meant to bug but sometimes id toes unfortunately.”

The speakers broadcast from 7:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. and go on and off automatically.

I don’t have anything against radio stations promoting themselves. I love radio, newspapers, television, and so forth. I believe that the media is a fundamental component of a democratic society.

That being said, however, I think that we should have some reasonable degree of choice when it comes to what radio station we want to listen to.

I think it’s fine for a business to play music in their own property. If a customer doesn’t like it they can approach a staff person to turn it down or just leave. But in this case a business is playing music that is being heard well beyond their property and even if they wanted to turn it down there seems to be difficulty in locating a person who as the ability to do so.

If I want to listen to this radio station in my hotel room I can turn on my radio, stream it online, hang out in the elevator, or be put on hold (it seems to be the common hold music here). I don’t really need it blaring down the main street.

This radio station lends an obnoxious and unsophisticated element to an otherwise lovely downtown.

Here you can listen to the noise.

Yesterday I attended the Occupy Vancouver protests… because Michael Moore said so! I couldn’t summarise any coherent points into a sign message so I just wrote “Meow!” I decided against bringing the sign as I thought it might take attention away from the more serious messages of other participants.

Here’s my buddy Natasha and I precariously balanced on the edge of a fountain:

I was there from 9:30 a.m. until about 4:30 p.m.  I scanned the crowd and noticed several attendees with a pooch in tow… but no cats!

Where were the cats?!

The first two hours or so were devoted to hashing out how we’d communicate at the General Assembly. It was agreed that the speakers on the podium would communicate through the microphone but if someone in the crowd wanted to say something their words would be ampliphied by a “human mic” in which the crowd repeats what they say.

As soon as we figured this out I was tempted to use the human mic to just say “meow”.

“Don’t abuse the human mic, Nathaniel!” said my friend Justine. So… I didn’t and as a result, no cats could find me. So yeah, I did my best to find evidence of kitties at the occupation without the assistance of the human mic.

The most obvious representation of cats was this kick ass Nyan cat sign. “I thought it would be fun,” said the girl who made it.

This woman used cats to illustrate the movement. The fat grey cat on the left represents the privileged one per cent with his bow-tie, cigar, money, and spectacles for money countin’. Hopefully he can pay the vet bills – smoking’ll catch up with him eventually! The five kittens in the cage represent the rest of us. They are cute and spritely but stuck in a prison of sorts.

Finally, here’s one of the many wonderful Occupy Vancouver volunteers going around the crowd with a collection bin. If you’re a cat owner you may recognise the donation pail as a Purina Maxx Scoop cat litter bin!

Have you seen any cats or anything related to cats at your local occupation? Let me know!

My sleep schedule has been quite wonky this weekend. It’s gotten to the point I’ve completely lost track of what time or even day it is. As it happens, today was Thanksgiving but I had totally forgotten – usually Housemate reminds me of things like this but he’s on the Island celebrating the holiday with his mother.

I woke up to the sound of MSN new message alerts coming from my laptop. My brother Gino was going on about Thanksgiving preparations at our dear friend Steph’s house over in Nanaimo which apparently involved him deep frying bits of ham. Here’s Gino with Steph and her mommy:

My buddies and fabulous guest bloggers Jess and Mike celebrated the day with rotisserie chickens with savoury stuffing made in the breadmaker followed by rice pudding with pumpkin pie spice, pistachios, golden raisins, and maple syrup. Here’s the bread machine she used:

My friends got me all craving something Thanksgivingy so I resolved to cart myself to the Safeway and get a chicken or something.

On the way to Safeway, however, I passed by a Chinese restaurant that was advertising a Thanksgiving dinner for $7.99 ($8.90 with tax). I figure it’d be nice to not have to cook and it’d probably be cheaper than groceries so that’s what I got. Here’s the place I went:

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They gave me a decent amount of turkey and potatoes covered in gravy and aside from the appearance there was really nothing wrong with either. The vegetables, however, were sparse and slimy and the soup was a little thin and bland. There was no stuffing, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie. It was a real half-assed Thanksgiving dinner and definitely not good value. In fact, I’ve had far better Thanksgiving suppers at soup kitchens.

Here’s what I got:

But all is not lost! It turns out I’ll be getting a Thanksgiving present from Housemate’s mother! Housemate told her how I always cut my fingers when I’m cooking onions for the Indian curries I made all the time so apparently she got me a this salad shooter thing. Isn’t that nice?

This year I’m thankful for all the nice people in my life.