Go and watch this video guide to chocolate from our friends at Hersheys. I find myself drawn into the world of the vaguely animatronic nature of the young hosts; they both have unnaturally large mouths, and their manner of speaking seems designed for cartoon characters, not regular people.

What’s more disturbing even still is that at Hersheys Chocolate World, you can “explore the art of chocolate-making on a FREE simulated factory tour ride that concludes with a delicious sample.” What is the point of driving all the way to Hershey if the factory tour is simulated, and what does that mean, anyway?

Ironically, I’ve actually been on the tour, and either when I was young it wasn’t “simulated” or I was so young I didn’t notice the conceit.

If things had gone differently — more compatibility, more maturity, a nuance or two or three here and there, events, patience, timing — this could have been my fate.

I took a different path, and so did my ex- Mary Clare. She is happy with her husband Bill, and their daughter Katie Rain (pictured on top of the link just there), living on Cortes Island. I waited, met Catherine, fell in love, moved to PEI, and didn’t become a hippie. Probably didn’t have it in me anyway.

Funny how things turn out.

After orbiting separately around similar technical and design planets for 5 or 6 years, over the past two months I’ve come to know the masterminds behind the secretive silverorange.

Perhaps the most revealing way to discover the silverorange gestalt is to explore their public photo galleries: nick, daniel, isaac and dan.

An anthropological dig through these galleries reveals that these exalted young turks spend an inordinate amount of time hanging around with beautiful women, and traveling around the world.

This is, of course, the stuff of youth, and while I have a beautiful woman to share my life with, and more than my own fair share of world gadabouting, I can’t help but be envious of their youthful insouciance.

What interests me more, however, is the cultural divide that separate us. As much as we take a similar approach to technology and society (which I would roughly describe as “practical, functional and anarchistic”), there are vast tracts of the popular culture that we don’t share in common.

This surprises me. I’ve got a healthy collection of friends who are anywhere from my age to 35 years older than I am, and, in general, I find our popular culture references overlap to a large degree, generally centred on about 1975.

I can draw a broad allusions to Mary Richard’s apartment, for example, and most of my friends will know exactly what I’m talking about. Same thing for, say, the New Adventures of Superman, The Bob Newhart Show, and Airport 1975.

Although we share certain cultural touchstones — Seinfeld is a good one, as are The Simpsons, I must say that, in general, I feel a much wider cultural divide going back than I do going forward.

Some of this, of course, is because of the inherent differences between looking forward and looking back; it’s inevitable to feel old fartesque when you’re talking Archie Bunker’s Place and Joanie Loves Chachi and they’re talking Ali G. and Biggie Smalls.

But, after my [not all that old, but still a little older than me] friend Ann planted the idea in my head, I think there’s something else at play too, which is that the rate of popular cultural acceleration in the last 10 years has increased dramatically. I don’t know how to measure this, or even whether it is true or not, but there’s a certain feel to the notion that hits right.

So I ask you, young people: does this make any sense, and do you feel the same thing going back and forward from your positions in the cultural timeline?

Reader Claire, from the United States, no doubt in response to this note from 2000, writes:

Trying to locate a version of Sinatra’s I’ll Be Seeing You. This is not the Dorsey recording. He made a newer recording of that song. It is a swing version. The version with Dorsey was a ballad. This newer version is also in stereo. Having problems finding the album title.

Since the demise of Napster, research for the musical neophyte like me is much more difficult. I did find this version [3.2MB MP3] by Mark Copeland which, if not swing per se, is certainly more up-tempo than the Dorsey recording.

Can anyone else help? I’m trying to get a lead on ex-CBC recording master David Lennick to help; I’m sure he would know the answer.

From my Stephen comes a pointer to this ad from General Motors:

Stephen says:

I saw a review of the ad which basically said “talk is cheap,” but what struck me is how very different the ad is - didn’t Lee Iaccoca put out non-car ads like this during the whole bankruptcy/bailout debacle at Chrysler? But what strikes me is how (apparently) humble the ad is and the curious use of religious terminology - both “redemption” in the headline but also “spread the Gospel” in the text. Are customers God?

Marney Wallace, and about a thousand other people, send me email every day offering to sell me “Generic Viagra.” They are sneaky, these penis hardening charlatans: often their email to me has a subject line of something alluring like “Did you lose your keys?” or “Long time, no see!” The rest of the time they are less subtle: “Harden up!” or “Pleasure her with your manliness.”

The traditional response to this sort of assault is to complain about the scourge of email spam, and to suggest filters, blockers, or other tools to stop Marney and her peers in their tracks, or at least to divert their messages into a virtual burn pile.

But it’s not working. I’ve got three levels of email filtering installed now, and the penis messages still get through. Proving that, as with alcohol prohibition and grey market satellite encryption, determined disreputes will always find a way over the fence.

So perhaps it’s to to change tactics, to realize that there’s a determined group of marginal entrepreneurs out there who have enough energy to pound, pound, pound at me until my penis is deflated enough to need their products.

Can’t we harness this energy for good? Give these people an income without requiring they assault us with their spam? Obviously some of these people are simply criminal or neo-criminal con-people; but surely the majority can be controlled by some sort of integrated pest management system that converts pesky bugs into useful tools?

Just a thought.

I’m taking advantage of Catherine and Oliver’s sojourn to Ontario to do some [late] spring cleaning. I’ve collected a variety of “pre-read” magazines — most The New Yorker, but also some dwell, Linux Journal, Mother Jones and others — and placed them in the vestibule at 100 Prince Street in Charlottetown. They’re yours, dear readership, for the taking whenever you happen to amble by. Enjoy.

A reader, Heather, writing from Orilla, writes the following:

I would like to know when the “Blizzard” was introduced to Canada.

To which I replied:

Do you mean the tasty Dairy Queen ice cream treat, or the snowy conflagration?

To which she replied:

By “Blizzard” I meant the tasty Dairy Queen treat. The snowy conflagration was around long before Dairy Queen, I believe.

A quick call to Dairy Queen Canada in Burlington reveals the answer: the Blizzard was introduced to Canada in the spring of 1985.

Nutritional sidenote: a medium chocolate chip cookie dough Blizzard, according to this Dairy Queen chart, contains 950 calories, and 36 grams of fat. This might explain why when, in the midst of my gallbladder winter, having a Blizzard almost killed me. Another nutrional factoid: the Crispy Chicken Salad, which some might look to as a “healthy alternative,” contains 700 calories, and 51 grams of fat. Contrast this to the Grilled Chicken Salad, which has only 230 calories and 9 grams of fat. It’s all in the details.

JetsGo has positioned themselves as a “discount” airline. But I’ve found, in the two times I’ve flown with them, that their service is better, faster, friendlier than Air Canada’s.

In light of that, here’s an interesting comment from my travel agent:

It seems that everyone is finding Jetsgo better than AC, their fares most of the remainder of the summer seem to be higher than AC and they are still getting the bookings. Hope the momentum carries them through the winter!

JetsGo’s genius, then, is having the perception of being cheaper with the reality of being better. Air Canada can’t compete with that: they have the perception of being more expensive with the reality of offering poorer service.

First there was Viva’s, then the Formosa, and most recently Interlude.

Now comes Out of Africa, a new restaurant about to open on University Avenue across the street from the Dairy Queen, next to QuickDraw signs. They advertise “African” cuisine.

We’re becoming a multi-ethnic food paradise here!

Stay tuned for opening news.