Honesty is not the Best Policy

 Insurance company Odds On is once again reminding people that honesty is not the best policy. When 11 year old Minnesota resident Nick Smith attended the Shattuck Vs. The World tournament hockey game with his identical twin brother Nate, and his father, he decided to enter his name into the drawing for a participant to take a $50,000 shot in the halftime show. We've all done it before. Spotting the sign for the contest while standing in the lineup for the concession stand to purchase another overpriced hot dog and a bag of kettle corn. What do you have to lose? It was just another halftime show where they got a member of the audience to try to score some sort of impossible goal. Anyone who's ever attended a sporting event is familiar with them. Hit a baseball across the diamond through a ring the size of a jellybean and win $65424132143121542!

Both brothers played hockey, and this wasn't the first game Nick had attended. He already knew his name would never be drawn, and couldn't be bothered to even be present in the stadium during the drawing. And because fate is set to prove him wrong, his name is drawn. Apparently no one in the family knew how to use a cell phone, because instead of calling or texting Nick and telling him what happened, their father made an executive decision that Nate can just take the shot instead. No point wasting 75 cents on a text to get Nick to come in when the puck isn't gonna go in anyways. Besides, aren't little conveniences like this the reasons they went through all the extra work to have twins? After the extra pain of giving birth to two babies simultaneously and having to work twice as hard in the past 11 years to raise them, this was one of the opportunities to reap the rewards. If they weren't going to take advantage of these perks of having twins, they might as well just have has an abortion when they found out they had twins.

Nate Smith

Nate moves into position and to make a long story short, he shoots AND HE SCORES! His graceful wrist shot sends the puck 27 meters across the ice and into an opening a mere centimeter wider than the puck. The crowd goes wild and Nate is fifty THOOOUUUUUUUUUUSAND dollars richer!

Problem is, Nate's father found out he won't be receiving his cut after giving his son a hard time about the grades on his report card back at the end of June. So he starts feeling a little guilty about the deception and calls the game organizer the next day to tell them the truth. The insurance company, Odds On, responsible for paying the $50,000 reminds the family that the prize can only be paid in the person who's name was drawn actually takes the shot. Well no shit Sherlock. If anyone was eligible for the prize, why even bother drawing a name?

But in this case Nick and Nate are practically the same. What's really in a name? It's only a few letters someone wrote on a piece of paper. If Nate was Nick and Nick was Nate, what would be the difference? Now the insurance company is "investigating" the matter and trying to reach a verdict on whether to pay. We're all familiar with insurance companies and what happens when they "investigate". Nate's not getting his fifty thousand bucks, you and I both know that. So the next time you want to be honest about something, think about what you could be losing.

UPDATE: Odds On completed their little investigation. As expected, they didn't pay the brothers, but they did donate $20,000 to a charity on their behalf so they're not completely refusing to acknowledge the shot.

South Arm Geocaching Stakeout -- Conclusion

Having obtained one of the Garmin Rinos from my dad, I returned to South Arm park for the third time to search for the errant Taylor's Cache. The accuracy stayed at around 5 meters while under the trees, as opposed to the 30 meters from the eTrex Vista I used my last two attempts. As expected, the device pointed me straight to GZ and after pushing aside some leaves with a stick, I found the cache.

The swag in the cache was nothing to get excited about. Amongst the crap inside the hidden garbage can was the plastic part of a eaten Ring Pop. Anyone young enough to be eating a Ring Pop probably didn't travel to and find this cache all by themselves, so a parent or guardian decided to drop that in. I left a few of the President's Choice meat and pork stickers which my friend--who grabs a few of the stickers while shopping with his family at Superstore--and I save for caches with poor swag. I'd like to have left something which better suited the quality of the swag in the cache, but couldn't find anything worse in my geocaching kit.

Replacing the cache was the real challenge. All of the trees look the same, and when I finished signing the logbook and replaced the lid, I realized I had no idea which tree the cache had come from. I made my best guess, and, knowing that no one's GPS would be perfect and point to an exact tree, the next seekers would be able to find it just fine.

I found kool11's name in the logbook, so I know she found the cache. That rules out the first of the three  scenarios I came up with in my last post, and since I ruled out the other two myself, I am now very confused. I have emailed kool11 asking some questions and I will update this post when/if she gets back to me. I'll also start a topic in the forums then. Continue to check back on this post for updates.

Kool11's name mocks me in the logbook.

South Arm Geocaching Stakeout

Geocaching is a fun scavenger hunt-based game using GPS technology. As you all know, this isn't a geocaching blog. I like blogging, and I like geocaching, but I don't cache quite enough to author my own blog about it. Even so, I went geocaching in South Arm park today, expecting another boring micro in a tree, as described by the cache listing. But then things got interesting. If this happened every time I went caching, I'd start a geocaching blog pretty quick.

This afternoon, I returned to South Arm park in pursuit of GC2ZKYQ, Taylor's Cache. I had found the nearby Chloe's Cache last Friday without event, and I was expecting more or less the same experience today. My dad was using his company's set of Garmin Rinos, so I was stuck with the eTrex Vista. Oh how I hate this device. I've never understood how people can stand caching with it at all. But today, my frustrations from the eTrex's lack of a high-sensitivity antenna were exacerbated under the heavy tree cover over Taylor's Cache. According to the description, Taylor is a four year old girl, so I wasn't expecting her to have used a high-sensitivity GPS device to take the coordinates. And, knowing that the best accuracy I could get under these trees was 30 meters, I realized that Taylor probably got the same and that with a 60 meter (MINIMUM!) circle to look for the cache in, this was going to be a very long day.

But all hope was not lost. The hint indicated the cache was in the base of a tree. There were a lot of trees in the area, but with a nearly 200 foot circle to be searching in, it still narrowed things down and the circle became more of an ellipse. That didn't mean this was going to be easy, or even the least bit pleasant. The eTrex was pointing all over the place--as it always does--so I didn't even know where the center of this 200 foot ellipse would be. So I walked to the center of the field and waited for the eTrex to find more satellites, hoping it would indicate a direction I could even start looking in. The accuracy finally went down to 6 meters and the arrow became steady. I walked in a straight line back to the trees, and started looking inside them.

The cache was, of course, not there. I said at the beginning of this post that this had been an interesting caching experience. Sulking about my lack of a high-sensitivity GPS and walking across a field was not an interesting caching experience. So as I reached dead end after dead end after investigating every lead, I decided to call it.

Disappointment was the last thing on my mind as I began to return to the path to leave the park. Even on my way into the park I hadn't expected to find the cache. We (geocachers) all try to be optimistic when we arrive at GZ. But if I hadn't found it the last time I was here (after searching for Chloe's Cache last time), why was I about to find it now? As Zack Martin once said, "Aim low and avoid disappointment."

Zack Martin: Aim low and avoid disappointment.

It was then when a woman and two children arrived and approached the base of one of the trees to look inside. Now people don't just take a walk in the park with their kids and all of a sudden decide to start examining a tree where a geocache was known to be hidden. I knew what was happening here. I don't like to reveal myself to be a geocacher to other cachers immediately, but given the circumstances I considered identifying myself and asking if they thought they could find it. I decided against it and chose to just stick around and see how things played out. I pulled out my phone to tweet about how things were progressing. Here are the tweets:

http://twitter.com/Ambient_Skater/status/93424279168884736
http://twitter.com/Ambient_Skater/status/93425010185740288
http://twitter.com/Ambient_Skater/status/93426534832013313
http://twitter.com/Ambient_Skater/status/93427471239753728
http://twitter.com/Ambient_Skater/status/93428842470973440
http://twitter.com/Ambient_Skater/status/93430076066115584
http://twitter.com/Ambient_Skater/status/93433271563722752

The woman and her kids came out of the bushes and sat down on a nearby bench, eying me nervously. At first I assumed they had found the cache and were signing the logbook on the bench. Great, they'd replace it once they were done and I could pick it right up and finally close the book on this case. Only they never did replace the cache, and instead walked off towards the playground. I thought they had gone for a walk with the cache while they waited for me to leave. Well I wasn't going anywhere, and when they didn't return, I went looking for them. *play Mission Impossible theme song*

The subjects.

I found them pretty fast and followed them a short distance to the parking lot. What were they doing? You guys still have the cache, you can't just leave. Well maybe they were walking to Chloe's Cache. It made sense to search for both caches on one trip, as I had done last time. But they did not go to Chloe's Cache. They got into their SUV, a tan Jeep Liberty, sat inside for a few minutes, and then drove away. That's when I decided to log a DNF. For a second I wanted to commandeer a car and get in a geo-car chase, or maybe get on my skateboard and grab the SUV and then climb onto the roof, but decided against it.

Later on, I realized that they may not have found the cache. I thought that perhaps they couldn't find it, sat down on the bench to rest and wait for me to leave, then left the park when they realized I wasn't leaving. But the confusion starts here. This log was posted on the cache later that day, claiming a find. The log states that "we even saw a teen walk by watching us so we just sat down on a bench near by the cache but finally they left." They sat down on the bench shortly after I walked by and started watching them, but I'm pretty sure they left before I did. I am now completely confused, and I figure these are all the possible scenarios:

• They got bored waiting for me to leave and left and never found the cache. The smiley they logged is a lie.
• They dropped the cache into its hiding spot really quick when they left (they walked right past the tree they were examining on the way out)
• They returned at some point after they went on their walk and rehid the cache while I was tweeting about the ordeal.

Number two doesn't seem likely since I checked the tree they walked by and found nothing. Number three is impossible because, well, I may miss things sometimes, but there's no way I'm that unobservant. Which leaves number one. I suppose I will have to email this kool11 and conduct a little interrogation. And I'll be sure not to come back to this disaster until I can get one of the Rinos.

UPDATE July 26th: Got one of the Rinos. Will search for the cache tomorrow, then follow up with another post.

Stanley Cup Riot

Although Vancouver is a huge, well-known city, you gotta admit not a whole lot usually goes on around here. Sure, every once in a while a large production like Twilight or New Moon gets shot here, Justin Bieber visits and plays laser tag, and occasionally we even get to host the Winter Olympics, but at the end of the day, life in this city is pretty uneventful. So when the Vancouver Canucks made it into the Stanley Cup final for the first time in 17 years, Vancouver got excited.

That excitement crescendoed into its climax on June 15th, when the Canucks were scheduled to face off against the Boston Bruins in the Ultimate Battle in the Arena of Death for the Stanley Cup. The winners of this game would win the elusive cup. Large TV screens had been deployed in fan zones around the city, where Canuck fans could congregate and watch the big game. Everyone thought this was the year. The year we would finally bring home the Stanley Cup, in all its silver glory. Of course, everyone always said that to themselves every season, only to be disappointed once again. But since we had made it to the finals this time, that thought was reinforced in the mind of every Canuck fan everywhere.

Of course, for those of the slow kids at home who haven't been following along, this was not the year. The Canucks had brought us closer than ever to our greatest desire, but yet it was still unreachable. They lost to Boston 4-0. Vancouver was not impressed.

So they channeled all of this excitement into a constructive release. No wait, a destructive release. That's right, the latest thing Vancouver is getting excited about is the riot. After the Canucks' loss, fans of all ages converged in the downtown core to burn cars, loot stores, and make the best out of a depressing situation. The rest of Vancouver, however, was not satisfied. They described the riot as embarrassing and set out to make the participants pay.

With the proliferation of social media, that turned out to be easier than it would have been a few years ago. Those who happened to be in Vancouver on the historical day have been uploading images and video taken of the event from their phones to a Facebook group, as well as VancouverRiotPics.ca. Everyone else has been scouring the sites, hoping to perhaps find a pic of their ex, a friend who owes them money, or their annoying roommate who snores too loud so they have an excuse to turn them in to the police. I've been keeping track of the photos myself, but unfortunately have not yet found any of anyone I hate.

But the Facebookers certainly have. Vancouverites have uncovered the identities of tens of rioters over on the Vancouver Riot Pics Facebook page. Most of them have also had their personal contact information, including their phone number, added to their photos. That's great, because my mom has been asking me a lot about the details of the riot, and I don't know the details. So I told her to ask someone who was part of the riot. It's easy, I told her. Just go online, pick one who looks like they were particularly destructive, and give them a call! One of my favorite photos:

Unfortunately, everyone upset at the rioters wanted to help, but, not all of them had photos to upload. Those who didn't have photos and who couldn't find photos of anyone they knew didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to feel special. So some people decided to just take some screenshots of videos and upload them instead so that they could still experience the satisfaction of helping without actually contributing anything. Many of them created collages out of pixelated screenshots of the same person from different angles. Some just downloaded photos that were already in the group, superimposed some text like ID HIM!!! and re-uploaded the photo. A few added arrows and circles to REALLY show off their Photoshop skills.

Another thing people seem to like to do is to add a sarcastic comment to photos showing a participant's face. Apparently, posting comments on photos such as "he must be really smart" or "you're so cool" makes you that much smarter, and helps identify the individual too.

Now I'm just going to go ahead and say I don't know what the big deal is. All of us wanted to win the Stanley Cup this year. And that desire has been building up in the last 17 years. I was disappointed we lost the cup, we all were. Riots are something that seldom happens in our boring city and when it does we should enjoy it while it lasts.

Kid Named Ben Turns 10 on 10/10/10

I've always been quite interested in Ben 10. I made an effort to watch the pilot episode back in 2005 and was hooked ever since. Unfortunately, we downgraded to basic cable sometime around the second season and I never saw the rest. The series concluded and Ben 10: Alien Force was created, aired, and wrapped up. And now, finally, we're all the way up to the third series: Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.

Ultimate Alien premiered in Canada near the end of April without much excitement. Nobody ever gets excited about anything in Canada, except hockey. But Cartoon Network is doing something clever in the US, UK, and Asia. They've timed it so that Ultimate Alien premieres on the tenth day of the tenth month of the tenth year of the millennium: 10/10/10, but first preceded by an Alien Force marathon. Now that is timing. Even better timing than managing to schedule a tutoring appointment right as the Olympic torch is about to pass through your neighborhood. Kids and even many adults all over most of the world are gearing up for an entire day of Ben 10 tomorrow. Twitter has been alight for the past few days in anticipation of "Ben 10 Day." CookieCarmella tweets about Ben 10 finally turning ten on 10/10/10. Oh sure, because Ben has been Ben 9 for five years.

But someone is turning ten on 10/10/10, and it's not a cartoon character. Ben Reeves of Swinton, Greater Manchester is in fact turning ten years old tomorrow. On the very day that Ben 10 fans will be the most excited about Ben 10, an actual kid named Ben will be turning ten years old.

Think you've got it upside down there buddy.

You can't time this shit. For Reeves to turn ten tomorrow, he'd have to have been born in 2000. (See? My math isn't that bad.) 2000 was long before Ben 10 was announced, so it's not like someone extremely observant could have noticed how all the dates matched up and suggested he should be named Ben.

The article goes on to mention that Reeves was recently discharged from hospital after swallowing a plastic toy. Maybe he ate it think it would give him superpowers? I believe that's quite plausible. Nine is past the shove-everything-that-you-can-find-on-the-floor-into-your-mouth-stage, so it was must have been a conscious act done with a motive.

Epilogue for those of you who care: We went back to premium cable a couple of weeks ago and I have around 100 episodes of backlog to catch up on before I start watching Ultimate Alien. The first two serieses are no longer on TV and I will be acquiring them from another source.