acho que não

I knew it wasn't possible that I could have successfully dealt with three different helpdesks in one day. Bell's repair service really fucked up our phone lines. They're supposed to send someone out today to fix it.

Here's the note I'm leaving for them:

Dear Repairperson,

Sorry, I can't be there as I have to be at work. If you have any questions which Rosa can't answer, please call me on my cell at 416 389 8718.

I'm not sure if they'll give you the background on our situation, so here it is:

On Sunday of this week, our phones stopped working completely. This came to our attention when our alarm system helpfully dialed 911 on our behalf.

We had a repairperson come on Monday to fix the lines, but today we noticed a problem.

Prior to Sunday, we had this configuration of floors and phones:

Bedroom level - unknown (to me) number of jacks - all on Rosa's number
Living Room / Kitchen level - 2 jacks, both on Rosa's number
Family room level - 1 jack on Rosa's number
Garage level - 1 jack, plus the alarm system, both on Rosa's number
Basement - 2 jacks, bottom on Jacquilynne's number, top unknown

Today we have this:

Bedroom level - unknown (to me) number of jacks - at least one on Jacquilynne's number
Living Room / Kitchen level - 2 jacks, both on Rosa's number
Family room level - 1 jack on Jacquilynne's number
Garage level - 1 jack completely dead, plus the alarm system, unknown
Basement - 2 jacks, top on Jacquilynne's number, bottom unknown

If you could please return our line configuration to the way it was before - one (or possibly 2) jack in the basement on Jacquilynne's number, and all other lines and jacks in the house on Rosa's number, we would be quite pleased.

Thank you,

Bell just didn't bother to show up on Friday, and closed our service ticket. This morning, I have even less phone service than usual, as there is so much static on the jack in the basement and the level above me that they're unusable. This also takes out my DSL connection, so GRRRR.

I had to come in to work today because I have a few things to do (some of them work related) that require internet access and no internet access to do them with.

At 8AM this morning, a Bell tech was ringing our doorbells and pounding on doors to try and get our attention. Apparently he had a work order indicating we needed some new jacks. So, the running tally on Bell is:

1. Service visit that leaves our service only slightly less screwed up than it was before, but in new and wonderful ways.
2. Non-service non-visit, in which they promise to send somebody who never shows up.
3. Good service visit from nice Bell man who fixed our problems.
4. Non-service visit, in which they send someone over to do some work we never requested.

On the good side, yesterday, I sent them a letter of complaint, bitching about the crappy nature of the service we'd received and requesting credit for the time we were without phone service. I got an email today indicating that they were crediting a month of service time, which is nice. It also indicated that their service agents are located somewhere in Outer Monrovia and speak minimal English since the email showed basically no grasp of what I had actually said in my complaint. But I'm getting a $40 credit so I don't care that much why they think they're giving it to me.

Posts from Ghoti reminded me that Olympic curling has started, and thus it's time for my preemptory quadrennial Olympic curling apologia on behalf of Canada.

Canada, historically, hasn't done stunningly well at Olympic Curling. We find this disturbing on the grounds that there are more sheets of curling ice in the average Saskatchewan farmining community than in most the rest of the world combined. Seriously, there are a million and a half active curlers in Canada. No other country has even 50K active curlers.

Canada could send any one of about 50 high level teams and be significantly competitive at the Olympics, while most countries only have 2 or 3 internationally competitive rinks. That's why you see the same names over and over again - Pal Trulson, Markku Uusipaavalniemi, Jackie Lochart, Rhona Martin, Dordi Nordby, Anette Nordberg, Peja Lindholm - in International competition. Those countries only have a few rinks that can cut it at that level. In addition to these competitive names, the Olympics brings in a bunch of rinks from basically non-curling nations, many of whom have never even played on proper curling ice, and puts them in the competition to be slaughtered by the best.

The net result of this is that the Canadian Olympic Trials, which take the best of the best Canadian curlers, are actually the single most competitive tournament in an Olympic cycle. (Similarly, the Brier and the Scott are far more competitive than the World Championships that they lead to.) Canadian curlers play for 2 years with their focus on making and winning those Canadian trials. The actual Olympic competition is secondary to making it to the Olympics in the first place.

Basically, the reason Canadians don't have every gold medal in Olympic history is that they peak too damned soon, get cocky, and forget that there are good teams in the rest of the world, who can beat them. So, yeah, they've beaten the 50 of the top 60 teams in the world to get where they are. But 10 of the top 60 teams in the world are still lined up against them, and those 10 have more international experience (because Canadians never need to leave Canada), more familiarity with the other teams at the Olympics (because Canadians never need to leave Canada) and more on the line (because Canadians care far more about a Brier win than an Olympic one).

Someone on MetaFilter asked why curling has separate events for men and women. He's being a bit of a dork in the thread, but the question was an interesting one - not so much in the case of 'why is there?' but 'why, in the future, might there not be?' This is what I wrote in response (somewhat edited for spelling, etc):

There are significant historical differences in the men's and women's games. Those factors are, in my opinion, decreasing as years go by, but they still exist. I'd say the two key factors in the decreasing difference are ice conditions and the four rock rule (and its predecessor, the three rock rule).

The improvement in ice conditions (especially arena ice, which was traditionally crap) have made it possible for both men and women to play a finesse game very successfully. For one thing, ice has a lot more curl now than it used to (except in fricking Torino, where it blows), so there's a lot more options in terms of come around shots. Typically, in the past, men played up-weight take-out games, while women were forced into a more finesse style because they couldn't throw the up-weight needed. The finesse style wasn't as workable though, because the ice didn't have the movement it does now. The fact that everybody can now succesfully play a finesse game favours equalization - though it also emphasizes sweeping which pushes things back in favour of the men a little.

The other huge factor in equalization is the introduction of free guard zones rules. Back in the bad old days, curling games made football (that is, soccer) games look like scoring extravaganzas. It wasn't entirely unheard of for 10 ends to go by with no score at all, because the two teams would just pick rocks off until someone fucked up. That sort of game, with lots of up-weight take-outs decidedly favoured the men. But with the advent of four rock rule, where they *can't* take out initial guards, the kind of come around, tick shot, finesse play that women have always favoured is much more important and prominent. See above for how this plays out in terms of equalization.

Strength and conditioning are significant factors. It is a sport, despite the jokes, and as with most sports, men are just more physically built to deal with those aspects. They will always have more options open to them because of the up-weight abilities that they have, and thus will always be at least marginally better than equally skillful women's team.

Combine that with the fact that curling is a *not* a new sport, and has a great deal of history, and you get separate events. I mean, curling was first an Olympic sport in 1924 or so, and has national and international competitions since long before the idea of men and women competing together was seriously considered.

An additional factor that I wouldn't entirely discount, either, is the same sort of thing that face women in the workplace. A lot of great young female curlers get married, have kids and give up competitive curling. As a sport, the demographics skew older than most. The people out there curling aren't 16 year olds or college students. Most Canadian curlers have day jobs (unless you're ultra-elite, it doesn't pay the bills), and they dedicate weekends and vacation to major tournaments. It's tough to do that and raise kids at the same time.