I stumbled into a strange dilemma yesterday while I was throwing an old receipt into the trash. And since I have managed to complete my work early today, I thought that we could discuss it at length here.

And by that, I of course mean that I could ramble insanely for thirteen hundred words, and you can read it all because you have nothing better to do.

The central issue at the heart of the dilemma is the garbage can. It was fairly messy and garbageful yesterday, and for future reference, I shall assume that it was a standard Yucky Garbage Can. It had all the standard criteria covered...

• Wetness - I had washed the dishes earlier and anything caught in the drain was deemed to be garbage.
• Oiliness - Congealed fat and oil from a leftover dish that I didn't want to clog my pipes with.
• Recently slain organism - A moth I had crushed earlier with a tissue.
• Rotten flesh - One of my peaches tasted funny and had a weird looking spot on it.
• Smell - Standard two or three day old garbage smell.
• Used syringes - A given, found in any standard garbage can.
• Unknown - I had relatives over recently and they may have deposited articles of unknown nature and origin into the garbage.

So for all intents and purposes, we can assume that the standard YGC fits this criteria, and that the garbage can of interest I was dealing can be considered to be a YGC. The purpose of identifying a YGC and identifying mine as such is to establish the garbage can as something you would not regularly want to put your hand into.

Now here's how it all started.

Whenever I exchange money for goods and services, there exists a significant possibility of change being returned. Particularly when the dollar value of the goods or services is less than the denomination of the least valued dollar bill accessible to me at the time of exchange. Now this "change" is - through years of practice and habit - generally stored in my right front pocket. (Unless I am performing a purchase without the use of pockets or pants, in which case I will just grasp the coins in my fist until I can find somewhere to deposit them.) However, the right front pocket is not exclusively used for the storage of change, and there are frequent occasions when it will be asked to store more than just coins.

This was one such instance, when there was a varied assortment of coins in my pocket along with an old receipt.

When I came home last night, in an attempt to throw out the receipt, I had also inadvertently grabbed a single coin in the same motion. It's possible that the receipt was folded or crumpled, and that a single coin had become trapped within that fold or crumple...but that's something I'll never know for sure. As fate would have it, I didn't notice the extra coin in the intended throw-out-pay-off until I actually threw the handful of receipt into the garbage and heard the unmistakable sound of coin against garbage can.

I hadn't noticed...until it was too late to notice.

Judging from the sound of coin/garbage can impact, and taking into consideration the differences found in the comparisons of the present count of coins remaining in the pocket and the probable count of coins that were estimated to originally be in the pocket, I narrowed down the possibilities and concluded that the coin could have been anything between a quarter to a twoonie. So possibly a loonie as well.

And therein lies the dilemma. I am presented with an undesirable challenge (rooting barehanded through a YGC) for a desirable - and variable - reward (a quarter, loonie, or twoonie). And it's been something I've been thinking about ever since.

Now any risk management course will teach you to weigh the possible costs against the possible gains to find an acceptable value of risk that will tell you whether or not to go for it. And for that, we require a calculus of values. To determine the cost (by determining how yucky the garbage really is, and how much yuck-tolerance your hands have) and determining the gain (the number of coins, the possible value of each coin, and the probabilities of those respective values for each coin).

In my case, since I was only able to narrow it down to three possible coins all with equal possibilities, we can calculate the expected value of the single, unknown coin. Recalling OAC Finite with Mr. Esche, the expected value can be determined as follows...



...where E(X) is the expected value, and p_i and x_i represent the probability and value of each possible outcome, respectively.

Thus, we find...
E(X) = (1/3)$0.25 + (1/3)$1.00 + (1/3)$2.00 = $1.08333...
...which we round to $1.00, since - despite my angry letters - the Canadian mint has yet to issue a one point zero eight three repeat dollar coin.

We can also get more specific in dealing with general cases. Perhaps we establish some rules - the cost of rooting around for anything more than three coins is too steep, and a reward of anything under fifty cents is too little. We can then outline our risk behaviour with this graph...



...in what I call the Coin in Garbage Rescue Ratio or CiGaR Ratio for short. Each type of coin had an entered value, with quarter-sized increments also added between $0.25 and $2.00. The rest can be ignored, because when you get north of a dollar, we assume that dimes and below are essentially meaningless. If a combination of coin value vs. coin quantity is found in the region between the function and the x-axis, then rescue is advisable.

The first things to note are the maximums found at x = $0.75 and $1.50, where y = 3. This is because those are the only values that can be made with exactly three acceptable coins. In comparison, we see that x = $1.75 yields a zero value. Not because $1.75 isn't a sufficient reward, but because there's no way to build it from three or less coins, and thus the cost is too high. A coin has to be sacrificed to lower the cost back to the maximum allowed of three (ie. leave a quarter, so x = $1.75 - $0.25 = $1.50, which has a corresponding non-zero y value).

I'm not really sure why there's a negative region at 17 cents, though. I'm not really sure what a negative CiGaR Ratio represents. Negative rescue? So...the opposite? Is the graph telling us that in the event we have 17 cents on us, it's actually beneficial to throw it away? It's an unexpected finding, but I suppose things like that should be expected whenever we are exploring new ideas, and we must remain open minded in our pursuit of knowledge.

Maybe at some point we can figure out how to factor in inaccurate assessments of coins - for instance, depending on the actual material of the garbage can, the inflection and tone of coin bouncing off it at various trajectories and velocities, the actual size and thus monetary value of the coin maybe be suspect to doubt and different probability models. This may have come in particularly handy in my case, when I discovered - after plunging my hand into the YGC in a CiGaR Ratio advised rescue attempt - that what I had actually dropped was a nickel. Which actually broke the case studies and seems to defy CiGaR Ratio conventions. However, I still believe the system works - it's just that in my specific case, the parameters of the case just weren't correct, which isn't a fault of the system but a fault of the user.

It's something to think about if you ever find yourself in a similiar situation.

"No. It's been two weeks and I don't feel any different. All I've done is gain eight pounds. Now, what's in this?"
"Oh, a little of this and a little of that. Open."
"It's sugar isn't it? I'M IN THE PLACEBO GROUP!"

6/28/2006 12:34:00 PM | Comments (0)

Side Project

Over My Head - Lit

Just wanted to let you all know that I'm moonlighting a bit. The ol' WAMBAG just ain't enough to feed the pooch, you know what I'm sayin'? Shirley has presented me with the unique opportunity to use her blog for whatever I desire. Until she comes to her senses and changes her password, 'tis an opportunity I shall not pass up. I've already made a post over there if you want to check it out. It's kind of nice making a post and not feeling the pressure of adding in a Youtube link or anything like that.

That reminds me, here are those clips of Hugh Jackman hosting the Tony Awards that you ordered: One and Two. After watching these clips, there's only one question left to ask: Gay?

Any attempt to cheat, especially with my wife, who is a dirty, dirty, tramp, and I am just gonna snap.

6/21/2006 04:34:00 AM | Comments (0)

That Was Predictable

That's Not Me - The Beach Boys

I'm going to do something I don't usually do and explain the title of this post. There was a scene from The West Wing where Josh is trying to put something up on a shelf. His secretary comes in to speak to him and when he turns around to address her the whole shelf collapses. "That was predictable," he said in an exasperated fashion. That has become my mantra everytime something unfortunate happens. I say it at work about three or four times a day. If I knock a display over or slip on the ground and fall on my ass (as I did just the other day while rushing to do a price check for Adriana), I say "that was predictable" and I usually feel a little better.

I was supposed to go watch a soccer game with Arlene today. Apparently, we were going to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to watch Korea vs. France. Or something. It was going to be us and some other people, but I was excited because I'd mentally prepared myself to put the mack on her. I don't know if I was going to do anything today, but I could at least talk to her and gauge her interest and maybe even set up a date. I imagined myself showing up at her doorstep one day, with my guitar in hand, strumming the opening chords to You're Beautiful. She loves that song. I'm not saying I'm crazy about this girl or anything, but I could be. If she gave me the chance.

She called me earlier today to cancel. Apparently she hadn't left the house yet so she couldn't make it and she was going to do something else with someone else anyway or something. I ended up spending the day with my dad's friend's kids, playing Guitar Hero and other PS2 games. Not exactly the same as spending the day protecting a hot babe from a bunch of sweaty soccer fanatics.

That was predictable.

I shouldn't complain because the day turned out to be better than it would have been if I went to watch the game. I didn't really want to do that anyway, seeing as how I don't care about The World Cup. I'm sorry, I just don't. And I really hate every poser fag who suddenly does, even though I've never heard them say a word about soccer before. Okay, I'm going to leave that alone. After my guests left, I played Battlefield 2 (inarguably one of the five greatest PC games of all time) for a few hours before settling down on the couch to watch Game 5 of the NBA Finals (which had an AWESOME second half).

To top it off, I got calls from Shirley and Annia! Shirley was just about to leave for Vietnam, so she couldn't talk for too long. It was probably better that way since I was in the middle of gunning down cats in Battlefield. It is amazing how hearing someone's voice can turn your whole day around. I mean, I was already feeling okay about being cockblocked by Arlene (again), but okay in that way you feel after eating a tub of ice cream for comfort. Or so I've heard. Shirley's call was the final clincher in my declaring this day, this Father's Day, to be worth getting out of bed for.

Annia called at around 1:00, so 11:00 where she is. She sounded kind of drained, but as far as I can tell she's doing okay. I'm mixed on it, I guess. I'm happy that she's calling me, but on the other hand, I hope she's not doing it out of some weird obligation. Like, she thinks I'll deteriorate into a fine dust if I don't hear her voice once a week. Well, she should know that I'm 75% sure that I won't! Regardless of her reason for calling, I'm always excited to hear from her.

It's funny, I was waiting all week to go out today and come home with a cool post about my adventure with Arlene. When that fell through, I was prepared to write a post about how things never seem to work out for me with girls and wah wah wah. I wrote this instead. Better this way, methinks.

You rescued me. But...the Confessor...
I regret that we were unable to save him, too. We came as soon as he attacked, and we realized the truth, but...
And...it had nothing to do with the fact that he's...that he was...?
That he was a vampire? Yes, we knew. We have known for some years. To the right eyes, the touch of the undead cannot be hidden. But regardless of what he was, he was doing God's work. He was saving innocents and serving truth. And in the final judgment, what is more important? The burdens we bear or the way we bear them?

6/19/2006 03:26:00 AM | Comments (0)

I should probably post.

Below, you will find a link that combines together the two of the greatest treasures the modern world can provide - Street Fighter the movie and terrible Japanese pornography.

Yes my friends, I speak of Street Fucker II: Championship Edition.

I threw in "Championship Edition" just for kicks, but despite the YouTube video being labeled as "Street Funker Fighter II" I have reason to believe that it is more commonly known as Street Fucker Dash, the sequel to Street Fucker. Please do not inquire as to how I have this information, just accept the fact that I have it.

Those are an edited assortment of porn-free clips. Whether that news comes as a disappointment or a relief to you, I do not know.

Those of you who are well read in the field of Ahnuldology will find a special surprise mid-way through as well.

And as an additional gift to you, free of cost, is a "fan" review of the original Street Fucker.

I rue the day the glorious nation of Japan stops giving.

When I get back, I'm going to show you something I like to call 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Penis.'

...you know I really liked that movie, 'cause of all the flying and the magic."

6/13/2006 09:59:00 PM | Comments (0)

Knight Moves

King Of New Orleans - Better Than Ezra

First things first, here's the Evan Longoria - Eva Longoria article thing. It's not that funny at all, but I like wondering how much money sports writers make for writing stuff like this.

*****

While I was waiting for William to get off work yesterday, I stood in front of Eaton Centre for about an hour and watched this chalk artist do his thing. His name is Dave Johnston or, as he humbly calls himself, the Chalkmaster. He was drawing the cover of Kingdom Come #4, the image of Superman standing in red smoke. It's on his website if you've never seen it. Bear with me for a minute if you're someone with a lot of chalk art experience. I was blown away by his technique. To create the appropriate shades, he would scribble two or three colours on top of each other in seemingly random fashion. Then, he smudged the colours together and smoothed them out. He finished by blowing on the concrete, scattering stray chalk dust everywhere and voila! there was Superman's arm! It was mind-blowing. What looked like chaos to me was already a fully formed image in this guy's mind. What added to the effect is that this guy is such an average looking schlub. The kind of guy you'd expect to be working at a construction site or a tatoo parlor. Yet here he is, in Toronto, sharing his God-given talent with the world. Everybody stopped to take a look, most breaking out their spare change. Normally, if you passed a guy like this on the street, you wouldn't give him a second look. But for that one afternoon, he owned the sidewalk.

I had lunch with Filgen earlier in the day. Before Thursday, I hadn't spoken with her in person for...three years, I think? She's working at the Toronto Rehab clinic at the University Centre. When I first heard that, the first thing that popped into my head was, obviously, drug rehab. I was worried about two things: 1) That my slight penchant for drug humour might offend her and 2) That my crack addict build would be accosted by nurses as soon as I stepped through the doors. That would be embarrassing. Luckily, it turned out to be a general rehabilitation clinic, like for stroke victims, physical injuries, that sort of thing. I wanted to surprise her so I wandered the building for a while looking for her. I took the elevator up the eleventh floor and when the door opened I was greeted by a wall of red. I thought, "I'm either having a dream right now or I'm in The Shining." It turns out they were doing construction up there so the floor was sealed off. I sucked up my pride, called her, we met up and we went to lunch. She picked this nice Italian place right next to the clinic. It was one of those joints where the cook works his magic right in front of you. This guy had four or five frying pans lined up in front of him and was flipping and pouring and mixing and before you knew it, there was your meal. Actually, his performance was usually punctuated by a miniature flame burst, after which food would miraculously appear. This dude had skills.

We sat down and caught up on things. I remember I had a hankering to hang out with her again a little over a year ago. I was thinking about her and how she'd been there for me a lot even though we only talked on bus rides for the most part. Considering how immature (yes, even more immature) I was in high school and what a whiny girl I could be, it was incredible that she could tolerate me. I never felt that I properly expressed how grateful I was for her friendship. It wasn't something that I brought up during this particular lunch. It wasn't necessary, since things were going so smoothly and her life was interesting enough. She works at a place where she can help people, right? Why would we talk about anything else? Well, I did regale her with tales of my supermarket exploits, as I'm known to do, and lucky for me I was in good form. I was talking a bit fast though. That happens when I'm nervous. The lunch ended with my walking her back to work and vowing that I would attempt to drop by again next week.

After that I went to the Nike store and picked up the Carmelo Anthony 5.5s (which are so sweet that they bring a tear to my eye). Then I went to HMV, looking to buy anything that was part of a "2 For" deal. After about an hour, I ended up walking out with Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson's Smile. Those 2 For deals are always a lot trickier than they seem. To break in my new shoes, I wandered the streets of Toronto to kill another hour before meeting up with William. I walked all the way to the end of Bloor, then gradually made my way back to Yonge Street, moving in an L-shape pattern so as not to lose my way. It was cool, because I went through a lot of areas of town that I'd never seen before. Rich ones, poor ones, cultured ones, gay ones. I don't know if I'll ever visit those places again, but I'm glad I know where they are now.

Get off my car, Ying-Yang!

6/09/2006 12:21:00 PM | Comments (0)

Filling Out A Prescription OR Post For The Devil

Summer Wine - Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood

My mom had this song on repeat the other day while she was doing stuff in the kitchen. The house was almost completely silent except for this song playing. I was laying on the couch relaxing, watching a Maverick-Suns game. It was nice. Needless to say, the song has caught on with me.

*****

Oooh, I'm making a post on 06/06/06. Sign of the BEAST, man!. I'm fairly confident that I'm the only person who has made this connection.

*****

My boss is an unfortunate fellow. He wants to be a man of wisdom, someone that his employees will look to for guidance. The funny thing is, it's his simplicity that I respect. As much as I dream about becoming a rock star or an actor or just becoming filthy, stinking rich, I'd be happy growing up and becoming like him. He's got a lovely wife, four beautiful kids and a decent, honest business. When he tries to be more than that, it's just sad. And funny, of course.

For example, on Sunday he was telling me about how he was sad that I was quitting because I was an important role-player in the organization. He started going into this incomprehensible hockey analogy and I was just like, "God, let me die now." Putting aside the fact that I don't like hockey, the analogy got completely out of control. He started rambling about the goalie and the defencemen and the Buffalo Sabres and...aw man, it was awful. When it was over, I breathed a sigh of relief. I should have known the worst was yet to come.

As he was about to go the backroom, he starts asking me about relationships. He asks me if I have a girlfriend. Then he starts talking about how cute the girl who works in the pharmacy is. I admit, I've flirted with her in the past. However, I didn't pursue it for two reasons: 1) She had a boyfriend and 2) She vaguely resembles Helena Bonham Carter in Planet Of The Apes. That sounds harsh, but I still think she's kind of cute (Both the pharmacy girl and Monkey Helena). I think the only reason he (and a bunch of other people actually) thinks that there's the possibility of something going on between her and I is because we're both Chinese. Thanks a bunch, boss. He went on to tell me that she had broken up with her boyfriend and I should check that out. How he had attained that information, I have no idea. Excuse me if this paragraph was a touch awkward. Just know that the actual conversation was a hundred thousand times more awkward.

*****

I've been dreaming about work a lot lately. I'm not actually at work, but I'm usually somewhere else and work stuff will materialize. I could be in the middle of the desert and suddenly a till will pop up in front of me and I have to count it. Or I have to give change to some random person. It is highly disturbing. I am restless.

*****

The movie I'm most hyped for right now? THE PRESTIGE!!! The title is not actually in caps by the way, that's meant to indicate my excitement. The same goes for the exclamation points. Anyway, check out this cast list. For those of you scoring at home, that's Wolverine, Batman, Alfred, Ziggy Stardust, Gollum and Scarlett Johansson. And Piper Perabo, who is hot. Plus, it's directed by Christopher Nolan (or C-No, as his friends call him...okay, just me...but I'm his friend so it counts.). Clean your jeans fellas. This one drops in October.

*****

You know what movie I got caught up watching late at night? Ghost. It is strangely engaging. Did you know that it got nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award? That's a headscratcher right there. This movie should have been a failure by all accounts. You've got Patrick Swayze in the lead role, which usually turns out poorly for everyone (except for Dirty Dancing, natch). I mean, this is a role that according to imdb.com, was turned down by the likes of Tom Cruise, Kevin Bacon and Alec Baldwin because they thought it would be TOO CHEESY. Wow. However, he somehow manages to pull out most of the emotional scenes (it helps that he's buried in white light during his emotional farewell at the end of the film). Demi Moore is her usual useless self. She mostly sobs and whines throughout the whole thing. I'm not a fan. Whoopi Goldberg (who won an Oscar for this movie!) is great. People forget that she was a serious actress before she became a comedian (I think) and here she brings the best of both worlds. It's such a hokey film, and long too, but it works. Two scenes I have to catch anytime the movie is on:

1) The scene where Sam (Swayze) wants to learn how to touch stuff. He travels to the subway to find this creepy ghost and convinces him to teach him the ways of, uh, poltergeist...ism. It's a classic training scene that would fit into any modern superhero film. The only thing that sucks is that it's not a montage. It would have been great if it ended with the two apparations yucking it up as they pushed unsuspecting passengers onto the subway tracks.

2) The scene where Oda Mae (Goldberg) allows herself to be possessed by Sam so that he can touch Molly (Moore) through Oda Mae's body. Yeah, there's an obvious lesbian thing going on there, but other than that it's a great, over the top scene. Once that Righteous Brothers Unchained Melody kicks in...I'll tell you, it gets a little dusty in my house. I mean, seriously, the dust levels get dangerously high.

Heh. You know, you AIs are almost too cute. How do I unplug you when you take over the world?
Ask me the purpose of existence, and I explode.

6/06/2006 11:15:00 PM | Comments (0)

First off, congratulations to Big AL for managing to nail out four consecutive posts. During your wild euphoric ride, you forgot that all of our posts are completely insubstantial. I suspect I have like an unapproachable DiMaggio-like 18 straight posts or something in the middle of the archives, but that doesn't take anything away from what you've accomplished here.

But know that I had perverse pleasure in breaking it up, and I swear upon all that is holy that you shall never approach those formerly unapproachable heights ever again.

Please join me for another installment of Choking Yak's Provoking Facts.

- Lately I've been eating healthier than I ever have. Last week, I went two straight lunches without red meat. Just fish, potatoes, and (parts of various) apples. And if that's wrong, then I don't ever want to be right. I suspect it will only be a few weeks before my new fish & chips + apple crumble diet will begin to yield dividends. HEALTHY dividends. I've already signed the leases on six new automobiles so that I may throw them into the sun next week with my newfound physical strength that will surely result from this healthy lifestyle change.

- Also, when I was purchasing my $6.89 lunch today at the Eaton's Centre food court (why is downtown so expensive!?!), I pulled out a fistful of change from my pocket, and while the middle-aged Chinese woman watched from behind the cash register, I counted out exactly $7.89 (it was close, I had a looney left over). We both remarked and celebrated our witnessing of such a rare event with slight chuckles, and I really think we shared a special moment there that can never be duplicated. But later on in the day, I found a leftover dime that had hid in a little fold of the pocket...which kind of took away from the whole event and left me somewhat depressed. It was actually a little weird realizing that I had exactly $7.99 in my right pocket at the start of the day.

- That reminds of a a conversation I had while coming home on the GO Train last month. I had bumped into an old highschool chum of mine (I think I only have like two or three "highschool chums" left) and we enjoyed the following exchange shortly before parting ways once again, left to drift around in society for another four years before unseen forces brings us back together again.
Me: "...because man, it's all about the small things in life."
Chum: "You know what really burns me up? When you have enough change in your pockets to make a bill."
Me: "Yes, because that's what life's all about - finding the little things in life that anger you which would never occur to normal people, so that you may forever lead a life of blinding hatred."
Chum: "I mean...I have like seven dollars in change here, my pants are falling off." [rattles change for emphasis]
Me: "Good seeing you again."

- I swear to you, my loyal followers, that if I am elected King of the World, any conversations that are louder than a low mumble that take place on the subway before 10:00 AM will be made criminal offenses, and punishable by repeated mandatory viewings of The Medallion. Morning subway talkers are just inconsiderate. Don't they understand how important that extra 35 minutes of sleep is to me? When you only get four hours of sleep a night, you need all the quick naps you can get during the day. I mean, that midnight Malaysian bear porn doesn't surf itself - someone's gotta do it.

- There's a department-wide "Team Building Summer Event" lined up at work next week. I'm new to this stuff, but from what I can tell, it's going to be half a day of work followed by some cheesy trust and ice breaking activities for the rest of the day at some off-site location. ...maybe a LaserQuest somewhere? Crossing my fingers on that one. A "Team Building Summer Event" might also be familiar to some of you under a different name, like "Festival Of Endless Awkwardness" or "An Afternoon Spent Hanging Out And Discussing Real Estate Rates In Burlington With Your Middle-Aged Coworkers." I'm so excited, I'm losing sleep over this. Although I must admit that the potential for free food and huge Unintentional Comedy ratings are alluring. And as far as Awkward Office Functions are concerned, I don't think anything will ever top that one baby shower I went to two years ago during my summer contract job. It's like being raped by a bear as a child - I mean, after you've visited an entire phone book's worth of shrinks and you've come to terms with it - you'd be completely unfazed by any possible future sexual abuse you could ever take. I can't imagine how you would top bear rape. (...maybe whale rape. But the logistics of that are hard to imagine.) So I've been bear raped already. And this "Team Building Summer Event" looks like it'd as bad as like the Pulp Fiction basement scene at most - a walk in the park for me.

- Was that bizarre bear rape analogy necessary? No. Completely uncalled for...but powerful, nonetheless. Not unlike - yes, here it comes - being raped by a bear.

- Let's end with a link. White Progressive People Fight Racism. I don't really have words to describe it right now. Extremely low level production supplemented with solid acting and adequate writing, just killing time until the one big payoff (the Hungry Hippos bit). There's something to be learned here...but I just don't know what it is.

Heer's yourah Sub Zero...now PLAIN Zero!!!

6/05/2006 11:49:00 PM | Comments (0)