Online Test thingy

I just took another one of those damnable online tests (got it from Skatje) because I'm procrastinating at work. At least the test that I'm lazy rather than a workaholic. The test itself claims to be the ultimate Everything Test, which seems to mean that it looks at your personality and your experiences for a number of different topics.

I'm more loner and introverted than that, though. I've never considered myself punk or hippie, but definitely old geezer. I can't wait to be retired, sitting on my porch, and yelling at those damn little kids to get off my lawn.

The Everything Test

There are many different types of tests on the internet today. Personality tests, purity tests, stereotype tests, political tests. But now, there is one test to rule them all.

Traditionally, online tests would ask certain questions about your musical tastes or clothing for a stereotype, your experiences for a purity test, or deep questions for a personality test.We're turning that upside down - all the questions affect all the results, and we've got some innovative results too! Enjoy :-)

Personality You are more logical than emotional, more concerned about self than concerned about others, more atheist than religious, more dependent than loner, more lazy than workaholic, more traditional than rebel, more engineering mind than artistic mind, more cynical than idealist, more leader than follower, and more extroverted than introverted. As for specific personality traits, you are intellectual (70%), innovative (64%), adventurous (62%), horny (56%).

Stereotypes Punk Rock 60% Hippie 53% Old Geezer 50%

Life Experience Sex 40% Substances 3% Travel 35%

Politics Your political views would best be described as Socialist, whom you agree with around 78% of the time.

Socioeconomic Your attitude toward life best associates you with Upper Class. You make more than 0% of those who have taken this test, and 13% more than the U.S. average.

If your life was a movie, it would be rated PG-13. By the way, your hottness rank is 0%, hotter than 0% of other test takers.

TAKE THE TEST
brought to you by thatsurveysite

Go West

I'm back from Christmas break and now I'm off again.

In a spur of the moment decision, my wife now has us joining her sister in flying out west to Vancouver to visit relatives. We will also be visiting Whistler where I will attempt to not get myself seriously injured while skiing. I've never downhill skied before and I have a history of poor balance during winter sports (quite embarrassing for a proud Canadian, actually). Expect me back with at least one broken limb.

We will also be visiting relatives in Seattle, where we may visit the aquarium. Some inlaws visited there and were truly creeped out by a large red octopus. Naturally, if it creeps them out, it must be up my alley.

I'm not sure if I'll get some horrible mental ailment from passing too close to the Discovery Institute. Perhaps I'll just give the building the finger.

Hope to be back by mid next week approximately in one piece. Later.

Another reason to vote Liberal (as if Stephen Harper isn't the best one...)

(...and he looks like he's always wearing lipstick)

Canada can get rich by going green: Dion

This is a CBC.ca news story covering a speech by new Liberal party leader Stephane Dion about his views on how to deal with climate change. First hint: it does not include running away from the problem. Second hint: no hippy tree hugging, pie-in-the-sky Green party nonsense. The solution is to use tax incentives and penalties to force Canada into dealing with environmental problems in house as efficiently as possible. We need to catch up to the likes of Sweden and Germany. If all goes well, we can become a world leader in clean technologies and get rich in the process by selling off the products of our ingenuity.

I first heard this viewpoint expressed at an Earth Day summit, hosted by David Suzuki, that I attended way back in 2000. Since then, I've only had this view reinforced: People are lazy, and the only way people are going to clean up is if it pays to do so. And as the greenhouse gas crisis gets worse, it will only pay off more in the future.

Who gets rich: the leaders or the followers?

I've got an evil plan...

My brother and I have noticed a sure-fire money making business plan for just about any consumer goods you can imagine. Consider:

-You can't sell crap. People eventually recognize crap. And people can tell quality with a little training. But, frankly, most people can sense the nuances that seperate a very good product from a great product.
-Fair Prices? Nuh-uh. Fair prices are for customers who do their homework. Most don't. Most rely on advertising to tell them what to buy. Most assume that a higher price means a better product (which, fairly, is often the case). But a staggering proportion of consumers buy products because they are more expensive.

Not only does mindnumbingly high price make something a status symbol, it has the added benefit (for the dealer) of being extremely profitable. And image-conscious people will snap it up and demand more.

So the plan we had was to select any popular consumer item, it didn't matter which. Make your version of the product to be about as good as the best mainstream alternative out there. You can even copy it to whatever extent you can get away with legally. Style the product/packaging to scream "exclusive" or "high-end" and advertise this exclusivity heavily. Then sell it at extreme prices, at least half again as expensive, maybe even up to twice as much as the other premium brands. Because you are fairly exlusive, you don't have to work to hard or find ways to make your production more efficient. The type of people who buy Tommy Hilfiger bathroom mats then flip the corner over so that the Tommy label is showing will make you rich.

Unfortunately, other people have caught on. Texan chocolatiers Noka are selling premium dark chocolates effectively identical to their competitors for up to 25x as much! While espousing their "unique purity" that justifies their crazy price tag, they really just buy their source chocolate from one of many good chocolate producers and use it pretty much as is. That's much more evil than I would have dared to be. The full story is available at DallasFood.org and is a great read about skepticism for consumers.

The founders are apparently former accountants from Canada. My question is: why couldn't they have stayed in Canada? I'd happily have some evil bastards helping out our economy instead of helping the States.

Hat tip to Cleek!

I'm Back

I'm back, alive and well (not ... see below) from Christmas "vacation," which was anything but.

My wife and I went back to our hometown to visit family, meaning, in our case, hopping back and forth between three different houses, and for some bizarre reason, Ottawa, never staying at the same location more than two days in a row. Also, my wife's older brother and his family caused a bunch of us to get horribly sick with a bad cold, while one nephew, who chooses to cough directly at people, started with strep throat and developed pneumonia, then passed both on as well. The first night I was sick, we had to sleep on a crappy airmattress while sharing a freezing cold attic with five of my wife's extended family, three of whom snored continuously. I later passed on the illness to the rest of my family, and have myslef developed strep throat and bronchitis, and am now on antibiotics. My wife has also gotten quite ill, is also on anitbiotics, and has missed several days of work. It's been about eleven days and I'm still sick.

At least Canada won the World Junior Hockey Championships in Sweden. That's three undefeated tournaments in a row. Good stuff, that.

Anyway, that's a long way of saying that it's good to be back.