Things Everyone Should Know

We're not all geniuses, professors, academics, or TV detectives, and I'm okay with that. But by the same token, there are things that human beings who are awake more than they are asleep, who can operate a cell phone while maintaining their balance, and who might have any charge over another human really really should know.

I have conveniently listed a sampling of these bare minimums below.

It just ticks me off to consider the likelihood that someone out there will be actually learning something before the end of this rant-essay.

EVERYONE Should Know:

1. Why centuries are so confusingly named.

I can't stand hearing someone refer to the year 1865, as a component of the ‘Eighteenth Century’. These are the same NASA scientists that have to concentrate before declaring the century in which we now stand.

Why are they so oddly named? To put it simply: Because we didn't start with Year 100. For the treasured few that will benefit from the answer below... shame.

What year did the First Century start with? Answer: 1

What year did the Second Century start with? Answer: 100

Let’s lay this out:
First Century: 1-99
Second Century: 100-199
Third Century: 200-299
Make sense so far? Let’s skip a few
Eighteenth Century: 1700-1799
Nineteenth Century: 1800-1899
Twentieth Century: 1900-1999 (Should be familiar)
Twenty-First Century: 2000-Anybody’s guess

The common problem here is that people want to name it based on its numerical appearance; 1865 looks like it should belong to the Eighteenth Century. The more common problem is stupid people; They are everywhere. My tip for the challenged is to stick with the numerical name: call the 1800s ‘The Eighteen Hundreds’.

While we’re year-ing; Here's a brain-buster: Why was last year (2009) called two-thousand and nine, and the year ten years previous (1999) known as nineteen ninety-nine, not one thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine? As it follows, why did we not call last year (2009) twenty-0-nine? Do we have a concensus on this new year's name?

Did something in your head just pop?


2. SOMETHING about The Godfather.

I’m not going to claim some cinema elitism or say it’s my favourite movie, but it's not far off. The Godfather and its sequel are probably the two most important films of the contemporary era. I am repeatedly stunned when I encounter someone of my relative age and comparable intelligence looks at me mystified when I say: "I knew it was you, Fredo, and it breaks my heart." That's heartbreaking. Classic movie discussions by this generation should not be beginning and ending with Star Wars, as much as I do love Star Wars.
The Godfather is like literature. Learn it, you'll like it, and you’ll be a better person for it.


3. The difference between Your and You're.

I did a quick entry about this on my blog - Patricktionary. Check out the link in the sidebar.

I see this as a symptom of a larger looming pandemic. Follow the link if you need to learn this rule, and stay for while because there is much you should be learning, and tell the next person you see to call you stupid.

The English Language and all its twisted grammar will outlive this rule-bending text message devolution.


4. Local Time in Time Zones other than your own.

I lived in Vancouver for four and one half years and 90% of the people I would talk to back home, in the old Eastern Standard Time Zone, could not grasp the concept of what time it was where I was when I spoke to them.

To some it was a source of humour. Calling at 4:00 AM PST while they sat down to a nice EST breakfast, and while I assumed that nothing good could come of that long distance ringtone in the middle of the night, never got unfunny to certain characters that will go unmentioned.

To others it was simply uncomputable. There are many people who will never have to reset their watch to a place on the globe where the sun arrives and leaves out of sync with the place they will spend all the days of their life. They don’t travel, they don’t intend to travel, so their mind doesn’t need to bend around where and why it’s earlier and how can one decipher this advanced time-altering formula.

“It’s three hours earlier, Dad. It’s always three hours earlier.” The sun sets in the west, everyday. The time zone to the west of us gets their sunset an hour after us. Every single evening.


5. Some knowledge of how your Car Functions.

I wrote an essay for this blog a couple of years ago called ‘Mr. Fixit’. (Check out the Blog Archive) I was discussing the idea of license; how we have standards for operating certain equipment but rarely do those standards include an awareness of how that equipment works. There was once a time when everyone was responsible for the mechanisms that supported their lives. Then we became a society of consumers and service providers. What would the world be like if when something broke, everyone could offer input on how to fix it?

There are a lot of these fixes that I can forgive. Most people reading this essay don’t know how the devices they count on everyday function, even the slightest. What if your cell phone, refrigerator, computer, furnace, and your gall bladder broke down on the same day in the dead of January winter? Rough day, right? Some dummy out there can fix each one of those and he or she has the same size brain as you. Well, the gall bladder mechanic might be different.

But the automobile is different. This device is integral to our society. This device is dangerous in the hands of everyday people in ways that terrorists, firefighters and action movie stars can’t yet conceive of. This device carries a tank of combustible petroleum, moves like a rocket, and a grand majority of its operators can’t tell you why the pedal on the right makes it go.

This is a lot responsibility to put in the hands of, let’s face it, leagues of moron drivers. Shouldn’t some mechanical knowledge be a prerequisite? If for nothing else, just so we can ensure that these weapons of potential mass destruction are operating as they should.


6. Some of the proper lyrics to the song(s) you spend the day singing.

You know that song you can’t get out of your head? You know how you keep singing that one infectious part over and over? Don’t you know the pain you’re causing? Do you realize the risk you’re taking?

If there is anything worse than the meathead who can’t contain that automatic repeat of the song he heard on his clock radio, it has got to be that same meathead who has a perfectly functioning auto-repeat with the lyrics on the fritz.
If you’re going to cough your music germs in my general direction and risk infecting me, at least pollute my airspace with something more substantial than the disjointed tune or the wrong lyrics.

It’s not even funny, it’s just disrespectful. Drown out the voices in your melon in another manner.


7. To Admit It When You Don't Know

Most people talk shit at some point, it's natural. By 'talk shit' I mean speak to something as though you are claiming you have knowledge of it. Shit comes out of each of our faces at some point, sometimes seeded by ego and sometimes an educated extrapolation. Quite forgivable in the large scale.

Some people 'talk shit' and ask you to trust them. Some other people hold some BS certification that asks you to trust their knowledge for them, or at around the same time.

In my 'day job' I work in a support role, supplying equipment and technical support to 'licensed' technicians that install and service appliances and devices which are integral to how your house functions, and often involve fuels and chemical that are... dangerous, for lack of a better term, and for lack of more talented technicians. Many of these specialists are experts in their craft and a credit to thier field, but sadly are in the vast minority.

I am saddened and scared at some of the questions many of these 'experts' have for me about the basics of how these appliances work. These are questions that should have been covered on Day 2 of trade school. These are services that they are going to your home, after consulting with me, and charging you hundreds to diagnose and repair.

I don't really have a problem with the consultation part. No one can know everything, and we all have our specialty. What I have a problem with is the inability to admit any level of learning or gathering knowledge. I regularly watch grown 'experts' (95% male) go to dashing extremes and savage expense to avoid being caught not knowing something. Sometimes the something is so insignificant, sometimes it costs an innocent homeowner some money, and sometimes it puts people in danger... really, is your masculinity that fragile?

This principle embraces all of the above issues. Nobody knows everything. I don't have a problem with the people who stop for a second when naming a century, I can't stand those who won't evolve and figure it out.

Really, I could go on and on. In fact, I think I just might.

Stay tuned for part two.

Thanks for reading.