Something I felt I needed to make clear on this day.
We’re not the greatest country in the world.
Not that it matters.
We’re just the younger, more staid and calm sibling of good ol Uncle Sam (Nephew Bob), the ones who never rebelled against our parents (England) in any serious way and who got our sovereignty by buying it a piece at a time.
That’s why are still, technically, part of the British Empire.
England has no real power over us (except in emergencies, maybe) and being a part of the Empire makes some old people happy, so why leave?
And that’s the Canadian desire to minimize social stress in action. We’d never kick up a fuss and make a big deal of leaving the Empire because it’s doing us no harm and it makes some people happy, so staying in the Empire (on paper) is the position of maximum social harmony.
Which is in stark contrast to the American instinct to hurry past any principled arguments or notions of restraint to get to the good part, picking a side and fighting.
That’s anathema to the Canadian spirit. Any Canadian who acted like that would face withering social disdain and disregard. Eventually one of us would ask them, politely (probably), why they were upsetting everybody by acting like that.
And more than likely, if the perpetrator is truly Canadian born and bred, this will make them feel such crushing guilt for letting everybody down that they’ll stop.
In fact, they will probably need some kind of therapy, and maybe a bit of a rest.
I heard a great story from a lady from the UK who was here at a restaurant in Canada when a server dropped some dishes. Crash!
She did what people do in the UK when this happens : she clapped.
Only to have all the Canadians in the restaurant staring at her in aghast silence because to us, that would be so rude as to be beyond the pale. Unthinkable.
Why would you mock someone who already feels terrible about making a mess and disrupting everyone’s meals with the noise?
The Canadian thing to do is get back to your meals as quickly and quietly as possible so that the server could recover from their embarrassment in peace.
Calling attention to it via clapping would just seem appallingly cruel to us.
That’s just how we are as Canadians. Getting back to our meals discreetly is our way of maximizing social harmony. We’re not ignoring the server’s pain and embarrassment out of a callous disregard but out of genuine concern for them.
It’s what we would want people to do if it happened to us.
That’s why, as Canadians, we aren’t all that big on blame. Sure, we want justice, just like any other civilized country. But on a personal level, we’re reluctant to point someone out and say, “It’s all THEIR fault!”.
That’s why if you ever seen a torch wielding mob in Canada, you can be sure they are looking for a missing kid.
So what do folks think of my little speech for today? I think I am getting better at them. The number of ums and ahs I have to remove in editing is trending downwards, and I sound more confident and focused and charismatic.
This speaks well of my future as a YouTuber, or at the very least as an orator. If I continue to use less verbal filler, it will open the door to doing other, somewhat more ambitious things with my “talker” videos.
Like submit them to that Descript thing and see what it can do in the way of adding images and video clips to my content.
Of course, I could eschew the visual entirely and do a podcast. But I don’t like the idea of having to fill that much time with my own blah blah.
Is there such a thing as a short podcast?
Maybe I could just concatenate some of my speeches…
More after the break.
WARNING : The following may be too cute for some cute people.
You have been warned.
Is that not just the cutest thing ever? She saw humans using money and got the idea! What a smart kitty, and as a reward for that, she gets fish!
An unusual Tuesday
Joe and Julian were off doing Canada Day stuff with their families today, so I have been here all alone.
I did manage to finally make up my mind and get some games.
One of them is Tactical Breach Wizards, a rather odd little game where you control mercenary wizards in a world with our level of technology PLUS magic and you have to guide your SWAT mages through room after room of baddies in turn based tactical combat with spells.
Like I said. It’s wacky.
It was $20, which is 2/3 of this month’s game budget, and I am not entirely sure I am going to keep it. I’ve managed to make the learning curve so far, but I am not sure I can say I am actually enjoying the game.
Then again, maybe I am just being flighty.
I also, on a total whim, bought this game called Risen
What the heck, it was like $4 and looked like it might be decent.
So far it’s a fairly generic 3D RPG by Piranha Bytes, the same people who made that game Elex I was playing until it suddenly stopped working.
The combat is a little more forgiving than Elex, which is good, but the into bit seems to be dragging on and on and to be honest, the gameplay is not thrilling me enough to justify that kind of early commitment.
I mean, it starts with me getting shipwrecked. How original.
So despite how cheap it was, it might not last either.
I know I don’t want to keep being the guy who buys and returns a half dozen games before settling on one.
Then again, why not? It’s not like Steam is going to get sick of it and kick me out.
Maybe I’m just very particular about what I play.
That’s not a bad thing, is it?
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.