HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-02-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012. PAGE 5.
P eople ask me if I have a cell. Trillions, I
think. But I know what they mean. I tell
them yes, I have a cell.
Oh, good, they say, and they ask me for the
number.
It doesn’t matter, I tell them, because I never
have it.
Then they ask me, why do you have one? So
I can call someone if I need to, I say.
But…if somebody wants to get a hold of
you – they can’t, they point out.
Exactly, I tell them.
The reason I carry a cell phone is that I’m a
geezer who likes to walk in the bush,
sometimes on pretty sketchy trails. One of
these days I might slide on a root, trip on a
rock or fall down a hill. If my luck continues
to deteriorate, chances are I’ll break
something. When that happens (assuming I
survive) I’d like to be found by Search and
Rescue, not Turkey Vultures. Ergo, my cell
phone. It’s for emergencies.
Contrary to popular belief it is not that
life-threatening to be ‘out of touch’ with
the rest of the world for brief periods of
time. Humankind managed brief forays into
solitude for millennia before Samsung and
RIM and Nokia came along. For most of my
life it’s been the norm to rely on land lines,
Canada Post, a loud wolf whistle or a polite
‘ahem’ when one wanted to make contact with
somebody else.
Otherwise, you were on your own.
Nowadays people are seldom on their own
except when they’re asleep. People check their
BlackBerrys in restaurants and theatre
lobbies, on buses and subways, in elevators
and waiting rooms. When my plane touches
down – as soon as the wheels touch the
tarmac – there’s an in-cabin frenzy as
passengers paw for their smart phones to see if
they’ve missed any calls or text messages
while they were temporarily aloft and out of
contact.
What did they do before cellphones? They
thought, I suppose. They daydreamed
and fantasized, stargazed and wool-
gathered.
They retained some mental space in their
life.
Seems to be out of fashion now. Recently we
had a guest (I’m not naming names but you
know who you are) – over for dinner and a TV
movie. The dinner went well; the movie not so
much. Said guest sat hunched over his smart
phone furtively text-messaging for an hour and
a half.
Such behaviour would have been considered
boorish even a decade ago, but it’s rather
commonplace now. People think nothing
of being in your company and talking
to somebody else who’s not present.
Weird.
Once I saw a young couple in an intimate
bistro sitting at a table adorned with a candle
and a lovely white rose in a vase. Very
romantic. Except they were not holding hands
or murmuring sweet nothings to each other.
They were each bent forward, peering into
their handhelds and text messaging…
who? Who the hell would be important
enough to talk to at a moment, in a situation
like that?
How has such a tiny piece of technology
come to have such power over us? We should
have seen it coming.
More than a hundred years ago, when the
clunky old telephone was a brand new
invention, a forward-thinking Frenchman had
one installed in his chateau, then invited the
painter Edgar Degas to dinner.
He also pre-arranged to have a friend phone
him during dinner, so that he could impress
Degas.
Dinner was served, the phone rang, the
Frenchman rose with a flourish and talked on
the telephone for a few minutes, then returned,
glowing with pride to the table.
“So that is the telephone,” Degas said
gloomily. “It rings and you run.”
Arthur
Black
Other Views If the phone rings, it’s not for me
There are certain groups of people that
just need to get a life. They need to find
a significant other, or develop a time-
consuming hobby, or just deactivate their e-
mail account. One of these groups is PETA
(People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).
A popular video game called Battlefield 3,
which has sold hundreds of thousands of
copies throughout the world, provides gamers
with what developers call a realistic first-
person shooter experience. These kinds of
games are not uncommon. People have been
playing war video games for years.
I, for one, used to play Contra, a “run and
gun” style game that incorporated many of the
same elements that today’s shooter games
employ. I could probably even still recite the
famous Contra Code, impressing no one and
not even getting the 30 lives it used to get you
on Nintendo. (Up, up, down down, left, right,
left, right, B, A. Still got it.)
So when it comes to Battlefield 3, a game
where the objective is to kill as many opposing
soldiers as you can en route to saving the world
from terrorists, our friends at PETA have a
problem and it has nothing to do with the loss
of human life that often comes as a result of
war. It actually has nothing to do with humans
at all, it has to do with killing rats.
“The realistic computer game Battlefield 3
treats animals in a sadistic manner,” says a
portion of the translated statement issued by a
German branch of PETA. “The game gives
players the option to kill a rat with a combat
knife in the back in order to then lift it by its
tail, then toss it away. Killing virtual animals
can have a brutalizing effect on the young male
target audience.”
PETA doesn’t complain about the hundreds
of soldiers from the Middle East you’re meant
to slay over the course of the game, but one
thing is clear: the killing of rats has to go.
Going back, once again to my Contra days, it
was 1988. I had just moved to Pickering with
my family and it was our first Christmas in our
new house. It’s Christmas Eve (blame the
German heritage) and I unwrap a heavy, square
present unveiling a Nintendo Entertainment
System. Of course we all know original
Nintendo came with one cartridge containing
two games: Super Mario and... Duck Hunt.
I wonder where PETA was in 1988, because
hunting ducks just can’t be right, can it?
Anyway, back to Battlefield 3. I have played
the game extensively. It is rated ‘M’ for
Mature, meaning that you must be 17 to
purchase the game; almost as old as you have
to be to enlist in the proper armed forces, and
here PETA is worrying about rats being
killed.
But then again, this is an organization that is
no stranger to protesting video games. Just a
few years ago PETA released an internet video
game entitled Super Tofu Boy, the group’s
response to a popular internet game called...
you guessed it: Super Meat Boy.
So with so many real problems in the world,
whether it be actual wars happening around the
world, an ongoing fragile economy and the
constants like disease, famine, poverty, etc.,
you would think people would unite to get mad
about a real issue every now and then, rather
than the cyber killing of rats.
For anyone who hasn’t been on the internet
in the last little while, let me tell you, it’s a
scary place and there are all kinds of bad things
going on. If someone killing a fake rat on a
computer is the worst thing happening on the
internet today, someone should organize a
parade, because somewhere along the line,
morality won.
The Rat Pack
We all have our vices. I really like
coffee. I know I’ve said that before
but the simple fact is I can’t say it
enough. I would need to take off both my
Montreal Canadiens mitts to count the number
of ways I can make coffee in my kitchen and I
have more coffee mugs than shelves.
I actually collect mugs. I have travel mugs,
regular-size mugs, over-sized mugs, mugs that
change colour when they have a hot beverage
in them, mugs that look like bowling balls and
mugs that are intended to have soup in them
(but I still drink coffee out of them).
Some people may say this seems excessive
and they may be right, but my point, this week,
relies on me baring my soul and showing just
how much of a coffee nut (bean) I really am.
So using my coffee fanaticism as a
viewpoint, I need to say that 24 oz. of coffee is
really too much.
According to (somewhat dated, having been
released in 2006) material from TDL (the
company that owns Tim Hortons) the coffee
formerly known as Timmy’s large (14 oz.)
holds approximately 140 mg of caffeine. An
extra large (now known as a large with the
recent reclassification of drink sizes) holds 20
oz. of coffee which contains 200 mg of
caffeine.
Using that math, Tim Hortons new extra
large coffee (a 24 oz. behemoth that doesn’t fit
in my cup holder due to its height) contains
240 mg of caffeine.
Now I suppose the important thing to say
here is that Tim Hortons’ coffee is actually
fairly light as far as caffeine content is
concerned.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the average 8
oz. cup of brewed generic coffee will contain
between 95 to 200 mg of caffeine, an average
of 147 mg of caffeine.
According to the above math, Tim Hortons’
small coffee (which is approximately 8 oz.)
will have 80 mg of caffeine.
So while I can’t say TDL or Tim Hortons
spikes their coffee with caffeine, I can still say
that 240 mg of caffeine is too much for one
person to drink in the time it would take a new
extra large to go cold.
As a matter of fact, Health Canada states
that the amount of caffeine in an extra small or
small Tim Hortons coffee may be safe for
children 10-12 years old who, according to
their website (www.hc-sc.gc.ca) can safely
imbibe 85 mg. of caffeine daily.
The amount of caffeine in Tim Hortons’
version of 7-11’s The Big Gulp, however, is
too much for anyone more than 96 kilograms
or 211 lbs.
Health Canada suggests that, while a
definitive safe guideline can’t be found for
anyone 13 years old or older as a result of
varying innate and accumulated resistance, a
good rule of thumb is to not exceed more than
2.5 mg of caffeine per day per kilogram.
For me that means I could drink a little more
than a Tim’s new extra large before I could be
risking muscle tremors, increased heart rate,
cholesterol and blood pressure problems,
anxiety, mood changes, reproductive problems
and several other problems, including cancer.
And be aware that there is no real standard.
Starbucks’ (a guilty pleasure and vice of mine
that may have genetic causes) Pike Place
Roast, the home roast that is carried in every
outlet, has more than double the caffeine
content of Tim’s brew.
Eight ounces of Pike Place Roast contains,
according to the Mayo Clinic’s tests,
approximately 165 mg of caffeine.
That means that the “short”, or 8 oz cup of
Starbucks coffee (and don’t bother looking for
it, you’ll usually only find it by asking
specifically for it and even then you may find
they don’t always offer it) has more caffeine
than (what used to be called) the large double
double at Tim Hortons.
That means that Starbucks’ new size, the
Trenta, a 31 oz. drink, contains more than 600
mg. of caffeine, an amount that, according to
Health Canada, could only be safely imbibed
by someone larger than 240 kg or 529 lbs.
Now, I’m not one to throw stones, I’m far
from built like a Greek God or an Olympian,
but I have to assume that, given the strain
excess weight can put on the internal organs, a
529 lb person probably shouldn’t be drinking
any caffeine, let alone a Starbucks Trenta’s
worth of it.
I try to limit myself to two or three cups of
coffee a day (meaning four or five 8 oz cups in
various containers of various sizes) because I
know, as do many post-secondary students
who waited too long to study, that drinking
massive amounts of caffeine can lead to many
problems both physical and mental.
However, as I opened with, we all have our
vices.
And for those who are concerned about
energy drinks: there is less caffeine in your
average canned or bottled energy drink per
flowing ounce than there is even in Tim
Hortons’ coffee. That doesn’t say anything for
the other contents in the drinks (especially
those that advertise as all-natural), but it does
say that, by at least 10 per cent, those energy
drinks aren’t going to have as much caffeine.
Anyway, don’t take this as me saying don’t
drink caffeine and don’t take this as me saying
drink caffeine responsibly.
Take this as me saying I won’t be buying any
Trentas or Extra Larges any time soon.
After all, they would inevitably go cold
before I could finish them and cold coffee (not
ice coffee, that’s a creature of a different
nature), while effective at keeping you awake,
does not taste very good in my experience.
I’ll continue to enjoy a Tim’s single-single
Large (or Medium, or whatever they call it)
provided I learn to remember the new names
(and yes, I have already got caught at least
once) or a Venti Pike Place Roast whenever I
happen to pass one of Canada’s finer brewing
locations but I won’t be challenging myself to
finish an extra large or a Trenta any time soon.
And remember, as paraphrased from many
signs, coffee, and the coffee break, is best
shared between friends.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
The math behind the java jive