Gleaning the Glib

Ever wonder what kind of game show your job would be if your employers ran a game show? Would it be the kind of pageant from the 60s with string flags along the bottom of a portable stage and the host dressed in glitter? Or would it be the kind of game show that involves people getting hurt while others laugh? Is it the kind of show where your bosses get you to believe the stakes are high when they're really not? Does it seem like chance decides the daily double of praise? Are the cords visible and the cameras sometimes get in your line of vision? Is it a call-in show of just you, or a studio audience of 1000, and most important of all, do you have to answer every remark with a question, lest you be disqualified? (All people working in customer service fall into this category).

Speaking of studios, do you know what's the hardest part of finding an apartment in a new city? Trying to figure out where the hell its neighbourhood is. Also annoying: neighbourhoods called the Glebe. It just tempts a person to extend the e to be Gleeeebe. I live in the Gleeeebe. Or just Glib. I live in Glib. At which, if I said it, no one would blink an eye.

On a more exciting front (literal front, eh Gatineau? You fought hard for the north side of the river), on this front we have Nuclear Inferno Town, Mechanicsville, and Lebreton Flats. Allow me to illustrate: (Click for better image)

Fig.1 My apologies to whoever's garish graphic this is, one for it being garish and two for my stealing it.

As you can see, Nuclear Inferno Town does not exist. It is innocuously known as Ottawa West. But as we can see from this clever map of clues, Ottawa West actually has nuclear mushroom clouds! It's like scabies for that neighbourhood, it just can't get rid of them no matter how many times it washes its linen.

Now you will understand why, between Ottawa West and Mechanicsville, we have Tunney's Pasture. Kids, this is your first lesson in euphemisms: Tunney's is clearly a wasteland, begotten by a tumultuous love between nuclear arms and robots. The robots have recently given up, hence why they are pointed towards Lebreton flats, where God has recently awarded them life by touching their metal pincers with his finger.

Either that, or the Hulk is grabbing the overhead-projector-bot by its neck. But I prefer the whole 'spark of life' dealie, even if it involves AI.

I'm actually looking forward to AI, and hope that I've gleaned a representational portrait of this neighbourhood. I'm frankly looking forward to my best friends being my fridge and my toilet. Who doesn't need motivation in every aspect of his or her life?

After all, not every job is a game show.