Ways to make Calgary look like a city/Update

1. Photograph plumes of steam exploding upward from the frigid downtown skyscrapers at sunset, from the north, when the low-angle sunlight splashes right back at the lens and creates the image of steaming shining icy spires.

2. Photograph giant and important-looking aircraft beginning takeoff roll while aimed at the lonely skyline and surrounded by snow-covered everything.

I did neither. Now I'm in wet and rainy Vancouver, the beautiful catch basin of Canadian failure and, occasionally, Rob Bellinger's American dreams.

A Laughable, Illogical Trend in Blog Comments (now with new conclusion)

Several thousand people stop at this blog every week. Many come from links on other blogs or because they googled something that I trashed.

People keep reading my ideas, then trying to discredit those ideas because of my age (in reality, the two have no connection). This first instance occurred when I elaborated on the idea of "terror envy" that was described on a Boston Globe blog. My profile then said I was 25, so within four hours of the post, an anonymous commenter wrote that I should "grow up, little man." Never mind the demonstrated validity of my hypothesis that Boston (the idea of the city, not the municipality itself) actually and actively seeks a role to have had in the 9/11 attacks.

Now, people from the cities I visit on my many travels visit the blog. I don't always like their cities, and they don't always like me. For example: It isn't my fault that Calgary tries so hard to be Dallas that it's actually become an even bigger shithole than Dallas. This point is not debatable. But some anonymous person, having seen my year-old post on that vast suburban non-city, and, ostensibly, my Blogger profile, has now commented that I'm "pretty bitter for a 26 year old" and that I should "grow up."

Ideas can be relevant, descriptive, correct, and even inspiring no matter who thinks or articulates them. It doesn't matter whether you believe that or not, since it is the truth. Personally, I also acknowledge that sometimes it is necessary to offend in the process of being critical. And there's no gauge of whether a post was offensive to someone like anonymous commenters telling you to grow up.

I think that blogs about ideas are a lot more interesting than blogs about feelings, so I'll continue trying to write the former (for the most part).