Hello everybody, this is Mrs. Norman Maine. This week, I took a little break from the strenuous rehearsals for my new kabuki stage musical spectacular in order to travel to Ontario to meet with everyone’s favorite Canadian accountant, our very own
pageclot. I had a little trouble at customs with some rather pointed questions as to just why I needed thirty-seven pieces of matching Louis Vuitton for an overnight stay but I soon convinced them that a great star such as myself must change clothes at least four times a day and be prepared to be a fashion plate for all weathers and situations.
Soon the limousine was whisking me away to a cozy little chop-house on the plains where we were to meet. Ever the gentleman, Kevin, as he is known to his friends, was right on time and courteous to a fault.
MNM: There was a little unpleasantness at customs so I assume that Canada must be some sort of a foreign country. Why did you choose to be born there?
PC: My ancestors came to Canada at different times. On my mother’s side, in the 1630’s, members of the Tremblay and Cloutier family left the Normandy region of France (possibly as a result of the backlash against the Huguenot’s. I’m not really sure) and settled in New France (what is now Quebec). They moved to Ontario in the late 1700’s. On my father’s side, during the 1830’s, to escape the potato famine, his ancestors left County Wicklow in Ireland, settled in Central Ontario, and farmed. Everyone pretty much stayed put, and that’s how I came to be born in Canada.
Canada is a nice country, with relatively clean water, fish-able lakes, no handguns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, and a healthy trade surplus with the US. Some UN organization recently said that Canada was the best place to live. I think they took into account infant mortality, longevity, health care, education and employment. I encourage you all to move here. There is plenty of space. Hell, there’s 2,000 miles of prairies just waiting for an office building or a split-level with a two-car garage. And the country is the source of many of the entertainment world’s leading stars.
MNM: Such as those adorable little scamps, Terence and Philip. From your avatar, I was expecting to meet a 15th century Flemish painting come to life. What's the significance of the portrait?
PC: The portrait is a detail of Jan Van Eyck’s “Man in a Turban”, from the 1420’s. It was one of the first paintings done in oil, and shows Van Eyck’s mastery of the medium. Aside from bearing a striking resemblance to Earl, from the RedMeat cartoons (
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/ (the guy on the main page, blinking his eyes), there’s really no significance, other than I really like it, and it lends my online persona a certain urbanity I don’t actually possess.
I meant to change my profile picture every once in a while, possibly to show different facets of my character. Unfortunately, one of those character facets is extreme laziness, and I’ve never got around to it.
MNM: That’s just as well. I wouldn’t know what to make of it if you turned into Ginevra Benici all of a sudden. 'Pageclot' is an unusual name, even for an online community, what is its significance?
PC: Our house holds 6 cats. At one time, there was only one. That cat (Penny) had kittens. The kitten’s names are PAris, GEmma, CLarice, and OTto. I suppose it’s a good thing their names weren’t Clarice, Ithaca, Orenthal and Isaiah.
MNM: I don’t understand. I thought the only Orenthal out there was that Simpson person.
PC: It also suggests how slowly pages load out here in the boonies, where connection speeds are slow, and patience is not only a virtue, but a necessity. I can go make coffee in the time it takes some pages to load. So there are offsetting elements to my name. I’m a good fluffy thing (kittens) and I’m a complaint (slow connection). Most of the time, the fluffy stuff is in the ascendant.
MNM: If you like kittens and fluff, you really should look into the GlamourPuss collection for your lovely wife. We use only the finest marabou and yak hair. I’m sure you could find a way to make it a business expense with your accountancy background. You're developing a reputation for scorekeeping in the trivia contests. Do you have a deep seated love of numerals and statistics?
PC: File13 recently let the cat out of the bag with respect to scorekeeping: It’s not that hard. Anyone with a reasonable facility with Excel could handle it. I don’t have a deep- seated love of numbers anymore. More like a strong interest. It comes in handy when the dinner check comes around, and at work, where I never seem to have a calculator handy.
For instance (oh god, he’s going to give an example using scads of numbers), one of my tricks with numbers is figuring out the tip at a restaurant quickly (snore). To do this, especially in Ontario, is easy. I just add the provincial sales tax to the Goods and services tax, and voila (is he done yet?), you have the tip.
Example:
Food and beverage total: $18.14 (he dined alone?)
PST: 8%, or $1.45
GST: 7% of the initial total, or $1.27 (just kill me now, ok?)
Provisional total, before tip: $20.86
Tip = PST + GST = $2.72
Grand total: $23.58
Normally, most people multiply $20.86 times 15%, which means they leave a tip of $3.13, or $0.41 too much, according to my method above. (Sorry you asked?)
MNM: But is it the same for a European or an African waiter? And I’ve never ordered an entrée under $42.50 in my life… What do you do with your time when not writing here at EA or Epinions?
PC: Through work, or otherwise, I seem to spend a depressing amount of time online, but when I’m not online, I try to take the occasional walk through the woods, or mow the lawn.
I have many projects planned for the winter. One big project involves several thousand LP’s and 45’s in the basement waiting for me to back them up onto CD’s (anyone who can help me with this would get much appreciation. I need some technical assistance with the line in and stuff like that. Email me at
pageclot@pageclot.com with your suggestions. Thanks). I’m sure this is copyright infringement on a massive scale.
MNM: I’ll arrange a collection for your bail. Do you have any favorite EA forums or posters? Why or why not?
PC: The forums I check out on a daily basis are The Café, Current events and The Soapbox. My favourite forum is the Genome at Home thread in the Café. The Genome at Home project is run by Stanford university, and involves downloading “work units” to your home or work computer, letting your computer work on them, and automatically or manually uploading the completed work units back to Stanford. It’s a worthy cause, costs nothing for participation, and could cure cancer, among other things. Check out the first few pages in the GAH forum for more information. Our team (Easilyaddictivedotcom, team # 1765000174) is in 53rd spot, last time I checked.
As for EA posters, I have many favourites:
Joubert – the voice of sanity and reason in so many threads, but especially business
Wivabef – transplanted Canadian with a point of view and a positive attitude. Plus, wivabef pointed me towards EA, on December 15, 2000, at 4:32pm PST.
Grouch – David’s a gentleman, and passionate about books. He’s also a really supportive guy. The world could use more of his ilk.
Drmomentum – I always enjoy the Doctor’s soapbox posts, which are usually challenging, but in a polite way.
Erik Kosberg – The man is a machine! I am fascinated by how he finds all the really interesting stories. People at work think I’m this erudite and aware guy because I point them to all these stories that Erik has posted in either the Soapbox or Current Events.
Too many more to list, MNM. I’ve always been a big fan of your posts as well.
MNM: Flattery, my dear man, will get you everywhere. Do any members of your family or close personal friends post here, or is this for you alone?
PC: Nope. Just me. Oh. Well, there are close family members that hang out here, if that’s what you meant. I find it’s a good way to stay in touch.
MNM: Many of your reviews have been on modern literary works. What attracts you to novels and how do you rate them?
PC: I look for redeeming qualities in books. Writing is very hard for me, and I admire someone who can mostly keep it together for 3 or 4 hundred pages. I really started writing about books when I ran out of major appliances to review. I can’t go around buying a new car every year, just so I can pump out a review. But books I can handle. At least, I could handle them when I was writing quite a bit. I’m in a dry spell right now. There are a few write offs coming up, and I’m hoping that they prime the writing pump enough to get some momentum going. I think I enjoy reading books far more than TV or movies. Books are portable, lightweight, cheap, always “on”, and provide entertainment for up to a week. It is the entertainment value that I look for when I’m rating a novel. I do find that modern novels are a lot better at entertaining than some of the classics. For instance, I’m at a standstill with Jane Eyre, having read all of 24 pages. I suppose it picks up later on, but I think I’ll finish off some trashy spy novels first.
MNM: What are the five best novels you've read in the last few years?
PC: Don DeLillo’s
Libra: A stunning work of imaginative fiction. This is a plausible deconstruction of the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo has such a great ear for dialogue, and one sentence in particular makes me cry every time I read it.
Jonathon Carroll’s
The Panic Hand (short story collection). This is Carroll distilled. Short sharp shocks. Horror that makes you laugh, sometimes.
I am drawn to
What’s Bred in the Bone, by Robertson Davies, about once every year, to re-read it.
I wouldn’t exactly call it high fiction, but Frederick Forsyth’s
The Fist of God was the first book in many years that I finished, and then immediately started reading again.
I should reserve my fifth selection for
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. I haven’t read it yet, but I expect to get it for Christmas. Based on what David (Grouch) and Peter (eplovejoy) have said about it, though, I expect it to be a good read.
But if I choose a book I’ve actually read for my fifth selection, it would have to be Richard Condon’s
The Manchurian Candidate. Better than the movie in a lot of ways, its quirky, sly humour appeals to me.
MNM: Do you have any aspirations as a writer? How about in the world of musical comedy?
PC: I have no aspirations to be a writer. The hours are too long and the pay abysmal. I suppose the only thing going for it would be the constant joy of creating new worlds, being the Engineer of Human Souls, and affecting other people’s lives through your thoughts. Hmmmm. Let me think about it.
In the world of musical comedy, I’d be a liability. I love to sing, but have this sneaking suspicion that I’m always off-key and other people are too polite to say anything about it. I’d also have a tendency to laugh at my own jokes, which would ruin most comedic bits.
MNM: What advice would you give to those just joining EA or Epinions?
PC: Dive in. Don’t worry about making mistakes, because those are inevitable. Approach both sites with a positive attitude about the writing and the people, and ignore the monetary stuff. Put a piece of tape over the part of the screen that shows how much money you’ve earned. Don’t feel forced to write anything. Don’t write to a quota. Write about things you’re passionate about, one way or another.
Take big bites.
MNM: My accountant is advising me to invest in Short Line Railroads. I've always preferred the B & O and Reading squares myself. What do you think?
PC: Whenever I play Monopoly, I always make a joke about B & O railroads standing for Body and Odor. I’ve yet to receive a single laugh, but that doesn’t stop me.
According to economic theory, one of the conditions for monopoly is a high barrier to entry in a particular field of endeavour. Railroads certainly qualify. So if I were you, MNM, I’d buy all three. Then legislate asphalt roads out of existence by buying off a few legislators and then raise the freight rates, while keeping passenger fares low enough that they don’t come in the night to tar and feather you.
That’s what I think.
The bill came at this point, and, as I had a hair appointment, I had to leave. A lady never keeps her stylist waiting. When I last saw Kevin, he was amazing the waitstaff with various tip calculation tricks. I trust he returned home eventually. Before leaving Canada, I’m going to have a little chat with hadassahchana – stay tuned for next weeks featured EA reviewer.
EA Featured Reviewer for December 16th (for real this time...) 
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