What's in a Name?

Hello my trusted readers.

I've been sporting the name Epic Fail Hour for a little while now and I've recently come under the notion that the name could be better.  I have taken a liking to the name Human Fail Machine and propose a name change of this blog to that.  I feel the first name evokes an impermanence that was appropriate when I started blogging but the new name implies the potential and need to fail is inherent in the undertaking and that it's somehow more permanent.

I like that it is a metaphor for a person and not a time.

Also to me it seems less cynical and more poetic (what little I know of that).

What say you all?

Weekends Wasted and the Challenge to Fail

Another weekend come and gone.  I am always so excited for the weekend to get here only to spend it entirely camped out in front of my computer or my XBOX or sleeping in to make up for my self-destructive weekly habits.  Sometimes it seems I spend my whole life looking forward to being disappointed.

But don't we all?  We look forward to movie releases, book releases, game launches, TV Shows, holidays, vacations, family events, seasons, weekends, classes, trips, finishing things, starting things, buying things, meeting people, being rid of people, and accomplishing something.

Look at how much life we miss out on in the meantime!  Not to mention many of those activities end up being less exciting or fulfilling than we imagined.  But some of them do, some of them are completely fulfilling, and these always involve great loves or great people.

By all means look forward to that writing class in which you will be enriched by other people's passions or look forward to that turkey dinner with the family where your love banks will be recharged.  Look forward to making music or poetry or playing sports; look forward to whatever you are passionate about. 

But please don't just look forward to them, actually do them.  Are you looking forward to seeing your sister next month?  Call her!  Are you looking forward to learning guitar?  Play!  Are you looking forward to meeting someone? Go out and look (or talk)!  Are you looking forward to being in shape? Work out!

That is sometimes hard enough to do for the little things but what about the giant ones like pursuing your dreams, taking risks, and trying something new?

This concept has played in the lives of generations of people.  Most of us are held back because we are afraid of failure and rejection.  We have the misconception that if we do not succeed immediately we are failures and that is somehow a bad thing.  I've got news for you; humans are fail machines.  We are designed to fail at something until we get it right.  If you are not failing at something new, then you are doing it wrong.  Sure you learn a bit from success, but you learn so much more from failure.

Whatever you do, don't hide at home behind your hopes and dreams, venture forth and fail!

Cirque du Soleil: Alegria in London

Last Friday I attended Cirque du Soleil: Alegria in London and was very impressed.  The show was well produced, immersive, engaging, musically enchanting, funny, and evocative.

The show starts with the rather queer Nostalgic Old Birds wandering around the stage and down into the floor audience only to be corralled by the bitter and captivating Fleur.  Fleur acts as our guide of sorts through the landscape of Alegria and kicks things off after a bit with a lively and participatory marching-band stroll through the floor audience.  He had us all clapping along to the beat emphatically as the lilting tune rang out joyously with the odd pause for an exultant shout of "Alegria!" from Fleur.

The actors at fairly regular turns enter the floor audience and even interact with them and pull them occasionally on stage.  Most of the main Acts do not, but much of the in-between bits do and these are the highlights of the show.

The show could be roughly divided into Characters and Acts with the Acts being of the breathtaking and impressive variety and the Characters bringing the human quotient acting as the glue holding the show together.  The White and Black Singers provide a beautiful lyrical backdrop to the Acts and the live band really pumps out some impressive beats and tunes; you would not believe it is all being performed live if you could not see them at the top back of the stage jamming away (and in costume no less).

The show does not lack in acrobatics, contortions, or visually interesting coordinated activities (I rather liked the trampoline "roads" that were choreographed on) and if you were hoping to see incredible feats of female flexibility or impressive feats of male strength, you will not go wanting.  What the show absolutely excels at, however, is the clowns.

Here is the description of the clowns from the main site:
The clowns are witnesses to the passing of centuries, the social commentators of Alegría. The clowns reflect the eternal spirit of mankind. They are grounded and realistic, telling little stories of everyday life – where everyone is a hero, where anyone can fall in love and suffer a broken heart. The clowns are visionaries – philosophers of absurdity. Endearing, comical and child-like, they turn the world into a circus.

And what a wonderful circus!  They both brilliantly mock the Acts themselves and also provide their own narrative.  From the two clowns that experience a friendly rivalry throughout the show, to the heartbreaking clown that emotes sadness in a way that only a fully simulated blizzard can top.  Yes, a blizzard makes a rather impressive bookend prior to intermission I would say.

To get the most out of this show I would encourage you to either buy a program (I did not) or read the descriptions of the Acts and Characters on the website.  There are many layers to Alegria and most of them are not apparent without some priming.  Be aware that, as in our case, the Acts on the website may not precisely be the acts performed due to the nature of staffing a touring show and the highly-skilled demands of the acts, although equivalent substitutions were made such that I didn't notice.

This was my first Cirque du Soleil performance and it will not be my last.  Many thanks to the talented cast of Alegria for putting on a wonderful show in London, Ontario!

Office Bingo

At work we are running a Bingo game for United Way charity in which we purchased 3 cards for about $5 and the winner splits the total collection in half with the charity.  Numbers are picked by a program and put on our corporate intranet site and I currently need 3 numbers for a full clear to win.

This got me thinking about the math and geometry behind Bingo cards.  For example, did you know that 5 blank numbers in a diagonal across the board is the minimum you need to block any full rows or columns? 

Did you know that even if the FREE middle square is counted as given, 5 is still the minumum number you need to block rows & columns, you simply blank out the number above FREE and to the left of FREE and give them the FREE and diagonal square in I column (or a similar mirror pattern)?

Or this, based on a choose formula of C(5, 15)xC(5, 15)xC(4, 15)xC(5, 15)xC(5,15) you have a total 111,007,923,832,370,565 possible winning card combinations. C(5, 15) is 3,003 possible combinations for a single column.

I was about to figure out my rough odds of winning based on the fact that 58/75 numbers have been drawn (find out the number drawn from each column and the number left in each column, etc) but when I started to think about it I realized I don't really care that much and I should probably do actual work today.  But heck it was fun thinking about it.

I also invented the concept of a Super Bingo that uses unique permutations instead of just combinations, meaning that 5 bingo cards with the exact same numbers would not all be winners at the same time.  So you would be drawing B-(3)-10, meaning Column B, Row 3, number 10.  This could work for World Bingo events where the number of possible participants warrants a greater number of possible combinations.

Now I know why all those old folks like bingo so much, they must be doing the math while they blot away!

Depths of Despair

Bubbles streamed behind the submarine as it floated along the sea floor.

"Here it comes everyone," said Dr. Smythe, "New Atlantis!"

As the sub burst over the shelf ledge a glorous blue structure rose over the horizon like a galaxy of lights being born in front of them.

"It's beautiful," said Kelly under her breath.

"Amazing," said Sam, "You built this?"

"Seatech, along with 3 countries and a couple billion dollars, yes."

"How did you overcome the pressure?  What about prolonged exposure to..." began Benjamin.

"Can it guys," said Kelly, "I swear you'd talk during the Sermon on the Mount.".

New Atlantis stretched its tube-like fingers across the viewing window as it grew even larger, bubbles occasionally billowing up the glass from the sub's motion.

"Hang on," said Dr. Smythe quietly, "this should be fun."

The sub rocked gently at first but it quickly grew to a violent shudder as it drastically picked up speed, rushing forward and away from the ledge.

"Don't worry everyone, we just hit a feeder current slip-streaming over the ledge."

"A feeder for what?" asked Benjamin.

"This!"

The sub suddenly plummeted straight down into the trench beyond the ledge.  The pilot brought the nose down to match their trajectory, stopping the lurching; the city scape disappered as the pitch black maw of the trench devoured their view.

To Ear is Human...

The warp core thrummed on its lazy cycle as Geordie LaForge layed under the console beside it performing a diagnostic.  He had been under almost every console in Engineering trying to track down this problem.  it had started about 2 days ago when the Enterprise had finished running some short range scans on a previously unknown type of ringed gas giant.  After they had warped away he had started to notice the differences in the power readouts; just a few points at first, then a few percents, and now getting worse.  As Chief Engineer he was silently seething over it he had no idea what was causing it.

That was when Lt. Barclay entered Engineering whistling an almost familiar tune.

"Good Morning Chief!", exclaimed Barclay, "Fine day to run diagnostics isn't it?"

"Whatever you say Reggie," said Geordie, slightly distracted, something had his mind buzzing but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Childhood Twilight (The Twilight of Childhood?)

"Oh what a save!", Desmond shouted as he rolled over onto the ball, his legs extended into the air.  He had thrown the leg pads up in a desperate attempt to repel Tim's rebound and had succeeded in muting the shot.

"Nice one Des, I thought I had you," said Tim receiving the old tennis ball as Desmond scrabbled up in his 'crease'.  Crease being a fairly accurate description on the canvas covered driveway.  Most of that same driveway was cast in shadows now and the boys could feel the truly good hours of hockey ending and the truly good hours of bonding approach.