What to Wear On TV

Don't wear a lot of red or white - a white shirt under a blazer is fine, but white shirt & blazer will not look very good on TV.

If you have very dark skin, and you wear mostly white, it becomes difficult for the camera to pick up all the detail in your clothing and face - medium shades of clothing are better.

Don't wear light bright green, ie green-screen green, chances are you won't be in front of a green screen but better safe than sorry. In front of a green-screen, anything that is green becomes invisible - eg. "keys out".

Men
Don't wear your outdoors coat when appearing on TV. Don't wear a leather jacket or a jean jacket. Don't wear a buttoned cardigan unless you're over 65.

Wear a blazer. Wear a collared shirt. A dress shirt is better than a collared shirt, you don't need a tie unless you're a politician.

A golf shirt is better than a shirt with no collar, a golf shirt with a blazer looks better.

A turtleneck might cause problems if they are using a lavalier mic - it clips on like a tie clip. If you wear a sweater, a v-neck or crew neck works best.

Wear nice pants and nice shoes - you mightn't see these on TV, but then again, you might.

Women
Don't wear a short skirt, you might be perched on a chair.

Don't wear anything sheer, even if it's dark fabric - TV lighting is bright and you never know where the lights are pointed at, and what they might reveal.

Wear a blouse rather than a dress - the mic cable must be run up the back or front of your garment, comes out of your neckline and clipped on to your clothing. A skirt or pants are a safer bet, you might need the waistband to clip on a mic battery pack.

A turtleneck or floppy elaborate neck might cause problems for where the mic gets clipped on. A crew neck, v-neck, or a blazer are optimal for putting on a mic.

Don't wear jewellery that will jangle or clatter or swing - a better bet is to wear a colourful scarf. Your necklace might swing and hit the clip-on mic, and bangles that clatter at every move of your hand can distract from the reason you're on TV.

Don't talk too long! Watch for cues that your time is up. Get your message out concisely. It can look awkward if the host is trying to get you to stop talking and you add "and for another thing..."

Parents and small talk

When parents meet with people who are not parents, they are often stuck for conversation topics. Often they end up saying things that are not intended as harmful, but come off as condescending, like "people with no children have so much free time!" They are attempting to relate to the non-parent, but only by discussing what it's like to be a parent.

Labour Day thoughts

So yesterday was Labour Day. Labour Day celebrates the work done by unions, to secure safe and consistent employment for its members.

Did you march in a Labour Day parade yesterday? If so, did you then go to a convenience store to shop for a few things, or a fast-food place? Maybe you did, because in my area, the Metro grocery store was closed for Labour Day. Maybe you went home and watched the news on TV, to find out how the weather was going to be for your kids to go back to school.

I think that to be in a union, actively supporting it, and marching in a Labour Day parade, and then to go home and consume products and services that are not created by union-organized labour, is hypocritical.

People who work in fast-food joints and convenience stores are often not in unions. So don't give their bosses a reason to be open on Labour Day! If nobody buys anything on a stat holiday, the stores will eventually no longer open those days.

Television programs and commercials don't just happen magically. There may no longer be people physically pressing "play" on tapes, but there are certainly people at work on Labour Day making sure the computers play the right commercials at the right time. People who work in the TV industry are likely unionized, but scheduling unionized workers to work on Labour Day is kind of beside the point of having a Labour Day, is it not? Don't give the media a reason to broadcast anything on Labour Day. Let them have a test pattern up all day, it will give everyone a reason to think about why we celebrate Labour Day, and everyone can enjoy the day off at home with their families and friends.

And while we're at it, doesn't your ISP have people who make sure your internet is always up and running? Stay off the internet as well on stat holidays, give everyone a reason to have a holiday just like you.

Advice on dealing with your childless friends

Yes, we don't have any children. But that doesn't mean that we have no idea about children at all!

Some of us vary in what we know about children, how to talk to them, what four-letter words to not say around them, how accommodating we are about them. Maybe I was an only child, maybe I have step-siblings not far off in age from your own children. Maybe I am a teacher or nanny or daycare worker.

Most childless people DO have younger siblings, nieces and nephews and cousins and other small children in their life. If you tell us a story about what your kid did, chances are pretty high that we can relate to it, however in a childless person way.

If I am your distant cousin, or a sister-in-law you don't see often, it can be even more difficult to gauge how much I want to hear about your kids. The LAST thing I want to hear is "but YOU wouldn't know anything about THAT!" It might be the god's-honest-truth, but it comes wrapped in a very condescending package. Or if you were to congregate with other parents you just met at a family gathering, talking about your kids and not including anyone who is childless. Don't assume I want to hear nothing about your kids. Talk about them all you like, just don't exclude me because you don't think you can't relate to me.

Please remember that we were ALL kids, even if it was long ago. Most of what you talk about, can be made relateable to the average childless adult, even if to say how much things have changed. I realize that children experience childhood differently than parents, but it is only polite to try to make conversation with another adult. Maybe if you meet someone new that seems to have nothing in common with them, you ignore them, but that's your business; I try to make conversation and be accommodating.

Please don't insinuate that I have all this free time, and don't be fake-sympathetic that I don't have kids.

Free time is like attic space: it gets filled up, no matter how much you have. I am given the shitty shifts at work because I don't have kids at home to attend to, and I cover for parents who must leave early or be off to attend to sick kids. I have a full time job, I have to keep my clothes up-to-date, I have to work late, I have to upgrade my skills, I have to commute, I have to go back to school. If I am not married, I have a boyfriend who takes up a lot of time. If I am single, I am dating all the frogs in search of my prince.

Maybe I do indeed have all the free time in the world. However please refrain from pointing that out, because maybe all that free time is a huge glaring painful fucked-up irony in my life. Maybe I am in a lot of grief over miscarriages, or missed opportunities to have my own children. Maybe I would trade places with you in a heartbeat, so please don't tell me how difficult it is to be a parent. Hearing about how hard it is to be a parent doesn't make me feel better about being alone.

Maybe I have pets and no children. Please don't go there suggesting that pets are not like children. My mom, who had 4 kids, and knows enough about kids to be an amazing primary teacher, says that animals are like children. Animals get jealous of each other and fight, you have to clean their poop, they are dependent on you. I get it, they are not children, but for many childless people, they are indeed members of the family. Don't say they are not the same; don't go there at all, because if a pet is a substitute for a family that has left home already, or children that were lost, it's too painful to have a conversation about. The children aren't there; the pets are, it's pretty obvious so it doesn't bear mentioning.

If you have children and messy pets, my condolences! That sounds like an awful lot of cleaning up poop and settling arguments.

I do have a lot of respect for parents. I enjoyed being one of four children. My mom and dad did a great job. I would give my eyeteeth to be a parent. So please don't tell me how lucky I am to have all this free time, because I fill it with hobbies and the internet, whereas I'd rather have children instead. But don't be fake-sympathetic, just talk to me like a human being.

Three things that are now gone

There were 3 things that ended this year that I think it's too bad about.

CSVU.net
This used to be a place where I read Coronation Street. "visual updates". Mike Plowman supplied a plot summary along with screencaps. He did a great job - I was able to follow along for about 3 years when I did not have a television. I started reading his updates around 1999 or 2000. Granada eventually had him work for them, and his updates appeared on their site.

I have a television and a PVR now, so I don't read them anymore, only when my PVR didn't tape the shows, CBC Television feels free to move them to different times and my PVR can't catch up, at least the way I have it programmed.

So I had a peek I think in September, and the main page of the site was gone, though some of the material was still on the server.

From what I have been able to glean from the internet, Granada was cutting back and cut Mike Plowman. So no more updates, which is a shame.

Atlantic Ceilidh
This was a radio show on CIUT Community Radio in Toronto that focused on traditional Irish types of music, and like its title suggests, it spanned music from parts of Ireland, Canada, Australia, and other parts of the world.

I checked the schedule one day to listen to it, and it was gone. I called the station and asked about it and was told the host left because he no longer had the time, and that "no one stepped up with a similar show so we gave it to someone else" ie a staff member, I saw the name on the contact emails page.

I regret not listening every week, because I would have known about it and perhaps had the chance to step up and possibly become a host.

However I have had my fill of volunteering from my 2 years at CHRY in North York. Just the navigation of the system to get a show would suck. If I went now to propose a show, I'd have to start with a crappy overnight time and work my way up the food chain to a better time. This is best left to someone who is a grad student with a flexible schedule. I couldn't have assumed responsibility for Atlantic Ceilidh's existing 2pm Thursdays timeslot anyhow.

Apparently the host has gone to work for CBC. I'm not hearing his good work because all they play on Metro Morning is R&B or Latin music.

Ask A Nurse
The other thing that recently died is ask_a_nurse.
It was a Livejournal community that answered health questions. They had issues with people commenting with possibly inaccurate advice, so maybe this finally had them give up and shut down the comm altogether. It's too bad there was no explanation posted anywhere, it's just been deleted.

I saw Jodhaa Akbar last weekend, I saw it again tonight. It wasn't quite as magical the 2nd time, I was analyzing its structures and how they cut up the songs - I had downloaded the soundtrack earlier this week and often had it on repeat on my computer or iPod. The sets, costuming, music, and actors were gorgeous. The music drew from a few different Indian styles, but I detected a vocoder here and there, it was a nice blend of modern and traditional. The movie struck me for a couple of reasons: the lead character, the emperor, was very committed to following his own moral path, almost like a superhero. He was trying to maintain peace and reduce the number of soldiers who died in wars, which seems the opposite of how conflicts are solved nowadays. At a few points, the characters were caught up in religious moments, and these moments grabbed me - I experience my own religious belief in my heart and body, rather than as dogma and rituals. It was nice to see religion worked into the plot on the big screen, it was validating for me.

vaughan mills visit

Well I finally made it out to the Vaughan Mills mall, with its flagship store Bass Pro whatever it's called.
That mall was an assault on my visual senses.
The food court was painted a pukey hospital green, and there were some "food" mural illustrations near the ceiling at either end: the colours were pretty saturated, and they and didn't add anything apart from kind of being a focal point in a large space. There were some ceiling panel type things high above the fast-food counters, in a dizzying array of designs. It seemed no two were the same, which kind of made the whole room a hodgepodge of patterns and colours and I couldn't see any unifying anything about the area. I know some things that might look good on paper (or a computer monitor) might not translate into what looks good in the form of actual steel girders and corrugated steel ceilings.
There was one throughway that had a narrow purple ceiling with all these plexiglas curved panels reaching up high. That was the only thing I liked.
Some areas had carpet that was wrinkling up. My dad would have commented that the carpet needed to be walked upon and stretched a bit, before it was to be permanently glued to the floor, but in a mall, you don't have that luxury to let people walk on it to break it in, the way you do in a house. I'm guessing that it was the wrong carpet for the job.
I'm normally spending time in Sherway Gardens or Square One, which I realize are established malls and have had some renovation since they were built. Note to Vaughan Mills planners & builders: you can't go wrong with a beige or black marble floor in a mall. It will last forever, and you can dress it up or down, depending on what you do to the walls.
There is some "canadiana" in the food court, which is a kind of a nice touch. We sat at a table that had a map of where I grew up, embedded in the tabletop. But it gave the place an American feel somehow. (One thing was from Windsor, never been there; something with an old-school picture of Kleinburg's downtown would have been more appropriate.) Especially the Canadian flags in the Bass Pro store... wow that place is waiting to be spoofed in a movie, with its dioramas with stuffed raccoons and bears atop the change rooms. I kid you not! Also it makes extensive use of murals. I'm not sure what the planners were trying to say, by having all that type of decoration, strikes me as going for the most obvious, and lowest common denominator as well. I can shop for GPSs and tents with a bit more dignity, thanks, in MEC or Canadian Tire. The aquarium was a nice touch though, with people showing their kids the fish, right beside a rack of kids' toy guns. I was a bit moved, by someone's young Asian dad being riveted by the fish, he reminded me of the racially-motivated harassment that Asian fishermen were experiencing in local lakes and rivers lately. :(