Virtual vehicles for the metaverse
I was thrilled to see the news today in the company memo. Our building now has a rooftop patio. I can’t wait to get up there and enjoy the view of… well pretty much the same view that I have from my cubicle, only three floors higher. I know where I’ll be at lunch time. (The patio, for those who weren’t following along.)
It’s a shame they didn’t finish it earlier in the year. On the other hand, if this cold weather keeps up, we won’t need to refrigerate our beverages.
As I’m sure you already know, Halloween in Canada is an evening of frights, scares, and the occasional attack by arctic wolves. It’s a time of pranks, treats, costumes, and somber reflection on the fragility of life.
Why, I remember when I was a child back in the seventies, and dressing up as the most scary thing I could think of. My parents urged me not to dress as Relic from the Beachcombers every year, but I couldn’t be dissuaded. My older brothers both dressed as Pierre Trudeau. This caused a bit of consternation with the parents, because my brothers insisted on having real cigarettes and shaving a receding hairline. You can imagine the fear inpired by the mere sight of us — a grumpy boy with five o’clock shadow and two miniature prime ministers with comb-overs.
Dressing up was always my favourite part of Halloween. After that, however, we were expected to go trick-or-treating. As I understand it, our neighbors in the United States let their children walk door-to-door asking for candy. Canadian tradition is somewhat different. In Canada, the trick-or-treat is an important subsistance ritual.
After dinner, the children would hop aboard the dogsleds, followed by armed parents to ward off the hungry animals. If you’ve ever seen Hinterland Who’s Who, you’ll know that our land is crawling with vicious packs of eastern grey squirrels. A small family of those can strip the flesh off a costumed child in less than a minute, so parents stayed alert with their hunting rifles.
And so, from door-to-door, we travelled throughout the night (homes are very sparsely situated across the vast tracts of Canadian tundra). At each one, over gleeful shouts of “trick or treat!” and gunshots, the children and their bodyguards were greeted warmly and given carefully wrapped packages of bison meat, beaver pelts, and Canadian Club. The sleds were soon heavy with supplies — enough to last our family through much of winter’s deep freeze.
At the end of the night, which of course lasts for close to a week here in the north, we arrived home and fell exhausted by the warmth of the firepit. As we drifted off into the dreamland under warm HBC blankets, the parents inspected our haul, assessed our losses to the squirrels, and enjoyed the quiet satisfaction of having survived another Canadian Halloween.
Well those fine folk at Carter Honda took care of my Unhappy Honda. No longer does it sound like a coffee grinder. No longer will people be startled when I drive past. And no longer will my car wander this world without its soul — without its “H”.
6:50am. Standing at the bus stop. The temperature is just above zero (32°F for non-metric people). It’s a clear, crisp day and the sun is just about to emerge over the horizon.
6:57am. The number 5 trolley bus pulls up and I get on. After a few attempts to slip the ticket into the fare box, it finally beeps and lets me on. The bus is mostly empty at this hour and the cold air is tinged with the smell of vomit. I sit near the back door, avoiding the seat beside the blood-stained wall.
7:01am. As I check for e-mail on my cell phone, I idly wonder how the blood got there.
7:06am. A loud bang startles me from an e-mail that I’m reading. The trolley’s poles have come off the power lines, and an irritated driver stops the bus and steps out to reset them.
7:10am. At the next stop, a man in dirty clothes and a hacking cough sits next to the blood stain and proceeds to have a political debate with himself.
7:12am. I arrive at my stop. As I step off, I hesitate for a moment. Will I walk an extra two blocks to buy a McEvil McMuffin, or will I skip breakfast? I reject the evil and trudge towards the office.
I want my car back.
I left my baby with the mechanic yesterday. Sure, it’s not a very impressive car — a ’91 Honda Civic — but it’s my car, and I’m very protective of it. It’s too bad that I know absolutely nothing about auto mechanics.
That’s quite embarrassing to admit. I’ve always been very mechanically inclined, but when it comes to cars, what’s under the hood is a mystery. The parts I can identify easily are: the battery, the place where oil goes, the washer fluid reservoir, the air and oil filters, the big wirey thing with wires and spark plugs and stuff, and everything else. Things turn inside it. When the engine gods aren’t happy, it won’t go. And that’s the limit of my technical understanding of an engine.
This is a problem. How do I explain to the mechanic what’s wrong with it? I have enough sense to tell when something’s wrong, but how do I put that into words? So yesterday I found myself describing to an amused mechanic that, when I drive up hills, the engine makes a sound like a coffee grinder.
No problem. They just need to change the filter and top up the French roast beans.