And This is a Recent Photo

Settling Up

Here’s a true stupid story that happened to me a couple of years ago.

I stopped at a local discount grocer to buy stuff for the kids’ lunches, things like granola bars, fruit cups, juice boxes … nothing too fancy.

When I got to the cashier, she rang everything through, then told me the total. I went to swipe my debit card and she said “Sorry, the Interact’s down.” (People here pronounce “Interac” as “Interact” and will get angry if you point out they’re wrong.)

I told her I didn’t have any cash. She pointed to an ATM at the store entrance and told me I’d have to go use that, which I did – except it didn’t work either. So I went back and told her I was out of luck, and I’d have to zip down to the gas station a block away and try their ATM.

“But you can’t leave!” she cried. “I can’t use my till until this goes through!” By this time there were a few people in line behind me, and they were looking at me the way I look at people when they’re holding things up.

“Not much I can do,” I said. “Can’t you just void the sale or something?”

So she called her manager. And this guy came rumbling up: six or so inches over my six feet, easily 350 pounds, mighty mullet and, best of all, spider-web tattoos on his elbows. He was wearing the store’s green polyester shirt, which was skin-tight and sweaty, a name-tag that said “Blaine, Assistant Manager,” and he was scowling at me.

“What are you doing?” he asked me. Me, not her.

I shrugged. “Your Interac’s down, and so’s your bank machine.”

“Yeah,” he said. “All our phone service is shot.” The cashier looked stricken, and the lineup behind me grew.

I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go down the street, get some cash out, come back.”

“You know this really fucks things up for her, right?” he said. I was not surprised by his use of “fuck.” He looked like he was fighting the urge to use it every second word.

I shrugged again. “Not much I can do,” I repeated. I left the single bag of groceries on the checkout and started to walk away.

“Wait,” he called after me. “You need to leave something. You got to leave a deposit or your ID or something.”

I almost started to take my wallet out, but then I didn’t. “Are you serious?” I asked. “Why?”

“Because,” he said, crossing his arms so his spiderwebs showed (Spiderweb elbows are supposed to mean you’ve killed someone in prison or something). “How do I know if you’re going to come back and settle up?”

I could have tried to explain it to him, but that would have been a lost cause. So I walked out, and didn’t go back.

I bring this up because I saw him again a few months later, in a newspaper announcement. He’s now the store’s general manager. In the photo, his hair was shorter and he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt.

But he still looked stupid.

Poster Post

Someone at this movie theatre has a pretty good sense of humour.

Taste in Music

A researcher has come up with what he’s pitching as a sure-fire way to target advertising: match personalities to musical tastes.

Prof. Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University calls his work “significant” and “surprising.”

“We have always suspected a link between music taste and personality,” he says. “This is the first time that we’ve been able to look at it in real detail. No-one has ever done this on this scale before.”

What he did was poll 36,000 people about their musical tastes and their personalities. Which is pretty ambitious for a guy from Heriot-Watt University. It’s in Scotland. So he got 36,000 people to fill out questionnaires to explain (a) the music they like and (b) all their personality characteristics.

Here’s the problem: there are billions of us. 36,000 is a sip of the bottle. It’s like asking six Star Wars fans if Phantom Menace was really all that bad, and then saying “Fifty percent of Star Wars fans think Jar Jar was okay.” Assuming that everyone involved told the truth … which is unlikely, given human nature.

Anyway, here’s what Prof. Adrian North came up with as far as linking musical taste to personality:

Blues: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing and at ease

Funk: High self-esteem, creative, not hardworking, outgoing and at ease

Jazz: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing and at ease

Classical music: High self-esteem, creative, introvert and at ease

Opera: High self-esteem, creative, gentle

Easy listening: High self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease

Country and western: Hardworking, outgoing

Rap: High self-esteem, outgoing

Reggae: High self-esteem, creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease

Samba: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease.

Bollywood: Creative, outgoing

Dance: Creative, outgoing, not gentle

Disco: High self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle

Indie: Low self-esteem, creative, not hard working, not gentle

Punk: Lack self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not gentle

Rock n roll: High self-esteem, creative, hardworking, not gentle, at ease

Rock/heavy metal: Low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease

Chart pop: High self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle, not at ease

Soul: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease

Swing: High self-esteem, creative, at ease

Now, let’s look at my favourite music. My favourite music is the blues. But my favourite band is the Cult. I also listen to Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, the Killers, the Tragically Hip, the Doors, the Mission, the Tea Party and Type O Negative.

I have the release date of the new Metallica return to form inked on my calendar.

My favourite singer is Elvis.

I listen to Loreena McKennitt, Nasrat, Abdel ali Slimani, James Blunt, CSNY, Iggy Pop and the Sisters of Mercy.

In other words, I’m all over the music map, and so are you. We’re all pretty much the same. Except for Indie fans, Dr. North says – are lazy losers who might get rough, and country fans, who actually work hard, and …. oh, this is all such stupid crap.

Truth betold, every single one of these types of music is in my iTunes right now. Even Bollywood, because of Ghost World. And I have some of these personality traits. So do you.

The idea that you can pigeonhole someone based on their taste in music is as lame as the idea that people listen to only one kind of music. I know some people. I don’t know anyone who ONLY listens to country, or ONLY listens to blues, or ONLY listens to samba. That’s like eating the same meal every day. We all crave diversity. That’s what makes us who we are, not our taste in music.

Next week: A researcher from Helsinki justifies his funding by explaining that the clothes we wear define our personalities. Meanwhile, Dr. Adrian North is discovering that Google already figures out a way to target ads to customers, so he’s going to focus on just listening to Pulp for the rest of his career.

Stupid.