So you want to think like a loser? Ok, well here is my 10 step guide on how to become the ultimate loser:

1. Learn that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.
2. Never rush into a job or opportunity without a lifetime of consideration.
3. Believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from your obligations.
4. All deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.
5. Never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesimally small, is not exactly zero.
6. If at first you don’t succeed, there is always next year.
7. Always decide not to decide, unless of course you change your mind.
8. Always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when you get around to it.
9. Know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.
10. Never put off tomorrow, what you can forget about forever.


-------------------

I know I'm guilty of procrastinating and filling my time with unproductive activities.

But for those times that I do get frustrated with myself and actually get off my arse to do things, I'm amazed at the results.

An 2003 article about how rich black kids in a well to do school area weren't doing well.

The article is about how an American school district that is well off and whose families are well off aren't making the grade.

It goes on to talk about a mentality where the kids aren't given high expectations, good guidance at home and are also given a sense of mistrust of the 'white' establishment.

Folks, I think North America generally is headed in that direction especially given our culture of corporatism.

Michael Roach of CGI wrote in IT Business recently that tuitions should go up and that essentially the bar should be raised for people in the IT sector so Canada can become a land of innovators. Sounds like he wants either for schools to take the burden off of companies for training or he thinks that schooling alone will be responsible for the people of the next Xerox PARC facility. This coming from a CEO of a company that specializes in taking other's software products and customizes it to wrap around other company's problems. Show us the corporate R&D dollars and the cream will rise and come to you. But business being what it is focusing on the letters R, O and I (Return On Investment), that isn't going to happen.

Ever see Blade Runner and the way Ridley Scott paints a picture of a future dystopia where everyone has the smarts to do things that we see as rocket science and brain surgery today?

Put on your tinfoil hats, but here's an idea.... corporatism serves to blur the line between need and want for their latest and greatest products which are always out of date soon after you buy them or they're disposable so you need to always acquire more of it. We work our asses off to stay in this hamster wheel and give up things like free time and family life for it and the price is cynicism and youth who become disenfranchised from the system and slack off.

Kids who grow up in such a culture often have TV and the media to provide them role models. (Spoiled actors, immature sports stars and manufactured product mascots for the most part). None of them seem to tout the virtues of hard work, sports stars who say they work hard usually have a gift that helped them go the extra distance to take one of the highly coveted and limited number of spaces available in professional teams. Telling millions of kids out there that they can be like them when there are only a few hundred positions out there is pretty bleak. Add the product tie-ins for expensive and poorly made goods that most sign up for and you get irony.

Parents need to play the role. Provider and nurturer with a good helping of critical thinking equally hand in hand first and foremost. Not to be confused with authoritarian methods of "do as I say" especially since most never do as they say anyway.

Then we need to get by all this marketing crap, too many psychology and english majors coupled with artists that figure out how to get you to buy into status items and keep you working long and hard to maintain.

Perhaps then, we will note it as a quiet revolution completed that brings us onto the right track as a growing and advancing society.

Not a society that is growing and relying on advanced disposable technology as a crutch to say we've come a long way since our parents grew up.

When he was around, I used to sometimes roll my eyes or take with a grain of salt every time he went on a rant about how many goods and products from China were, shall we say, sub-par and lacking in quality from around the 1980s onward.

One of a few excptions were winter coats from Northern China... of course 'cause they have winters there and understand what one needs to stay warm. I shrugged and went on my merry way to school.

I knew China exported alot of cheap junk to the rest of the world. Dollar store toys, knick knacks, knock offs and alot of cheap tools to name some. I just assumed cheap junk was just cheap junk and anything else that was expensive or mattered (whatever that means) was made well.

Recently, a few eye openning things and second hand experiences in recent times put me in mind of my dad's rantings. A buddy of mine, John, was sent over to China to oversee machinery being installed. Apparently, although the firm he works for has offices and facilities in China, the customer didn't want the end product to be made at the Chinese plant, but made in Canada and shipped over there.

While over there, he saw alot of things that would make one's head shake. Old bamboo ladders missing steps with steel string to strap two together and extend, looking like half a parabolic curve against a wall as someone climbs up to do some painting. A bunch of guys sent out to dig a big hole where an excavator (AKA back hoe) would be used here. Guys being employed to pick litter and sweep along the side of busy highways rather than getting a machine to do it.

Life is cheaper than machinery over there. That was John's observation when we got together recently.

Then came the pet food scandal where plastic was being put into wheat gluten to increase the protein test score which ended up poisoning countless numbers of pets, toothpaste with banned ingredients, baby formula that killed and now a Thomas the Tank engine wooden train set recall where since 2005, paint used to paint the trains contained lead.

As I understand it, my dad and his entire family were farmers and land owners who rented out land to other villagers to work. By the late 40s and early 50s, a government policy mentioned something about communism and sharing which resulted in the tennants staking claim on the family's stuff. However, the local government representative clarified and proved that the others were wrong about their interpretation. Ultimately, a big rift between my dad's family and others remained. They were fed up, and three generations of my family left China all at once never to look back again since the 1950s and still harbour a certain amount of animosity towards their home country.

I think China once had alot of pride. The older immigrants certainly do go on about stories from yesteryear about how things aren't the same as they used to be. But then again, it also rings true here too when we talk abot the good 'ol days. I'd guess opportunism, greed and makeshift ignorant ingenuity to solve a problem is what has landed them in the predicament they're in now for providing cheap and dangerous stuff to the rest of the world.

How it all plays out over the next few years will be interesting.

There's a bit of a rush of emotions that's going through my head at the moment...

Knowing that our family will include 3 kids, knowing that we'll be needing to make some big changes in our lives in the coming future, knowing that there are a bunch of loose ends to tie up in order to move forward.

Overcoming my fears and getting back to what people have said I do best, which supposedly is thinking outside of myself and tackling things head on.

I don't know... is it age and the weight of responsibility that forces us into our shells and quells our dreams of greatness or is that what you would call the reality of living life and within the limits set for us in society?

I had a connecting thought about a few couple friends of ours about being "child-less" and "child-free" and the perspectives one has in life when there's a little someone who looks up to you. Also about my dreams and hopes and each of their priorities in life along with how the wills of others shape and change things.

Life is just complicated when you try to pull back and look at it as a whole. I guess focusing day to day is the best way for now.

Am I remembering something different, glorifying my youth or is there something to it?

Way back into the 80s at the height of my interest and fascination in the fictional world of Doctor Who, the special effects were cheesy, actors were kicking rubber floor mats into place that were supposed to be cave floors and alien costumes were nothing more than chicken wire and paper mache.

But the stories rocked, painting pictures of vibrant worlds, established characters and motives all while the hapless Doctor and his companion(s) would stumble in finding corruption and wrong doers that needed to be fixed.

The technology and scenery presented was campy but for the most part the stories gave me enough to suspend my disbelief and let my imagination fill in those parts which weren't visually strong.

With the new Russel T. Davies incarnation of the series, things have gone the other way.

The visuals and effects are great but the stories and delivery are rather lacking. Lacking to the point that it takes the great effects and makes it all cheesy and campy.

I can accept that the TARDIS as a Deus Ex Machina that hiccups more often than not but the sonic screwdriver being able to manipulate a bank machine's security to get it to spit out money? Get real.

Limitations on it to things that are theoretically possible with sound waves should be its thing... ie. sonic disruption, maybe turn ing a screw, welding, cutting etc....

Nit picking more, last season, aliens took over a school and brainwashed the kids into trying to figure some puzzle on the computer terminals. So the Doctor is trying to open up a Cisco switch that's been locked out by the aliens rather than looking for an alien server somewhere.

Or looking at the back of an LCD monitor to figure out what aliens are doing to a computer system.

Maybe the stories aren't weak but the execution of the story leaves lots of gaping holes that aren't glaring and make it hard to suspend one's disbelief.

I guess at least they should tell the story and focus it on the characters and situation rather than give as much time for a somewhat educated audience to see and analyze the implausible.