Fear is my strategy

I got together with some friends for some paintball today. The weather was great (not too hot, not too cold), and it's an exhilarating sport (and apparently it's safer than bowling--who knew?). I think it had been three years since the last time I played.

There is one problem for me going to paintball: I fear pain. When I experience pain, I can usually handle it, although it sometimes slows me down and makes me more cautious until it goes away. But I think the anticipation is the worst part. And it hurts to get hit by a paintball.

Most of the games today were team elimination games--two teams trying to wipe each other out. The teams start at opposite ends of the field. I usually stayed somewhere near the back while some others went forward further where they were more exposed to enemy fire. I'm sure this was partially because I didn't want pain. I got hit a few times anyway. After a few quick exits, I sometimes survived until near the end of the game and helped a lot in getting the enemies' last people eliminated.

The first time this happened, we were in a field with towers on each end. We sent two people up onto the tower where they could spy on the enemy and tell us where they were. It was pretty hard for the enemy to hit the guys in the tower without actually getting to the stairs and going up there (which was also pretty hard), but someone managed to hit one of them. Anyway, I ended up being the last person left on my team aside from one or two people in the tower. The other team only had one person left, and if there had been anyone in their tower, they'd abandoned it. With the help of the people up in the tower, I eliminated their last person. And I owe it all (partially) to my fear of pain.

Complaining etiquette

If I got a free cookie from Cookies by George and it was stale, am I allowed to complain, or do I have to keep my mouth shut because it was free? (Just to confirm: I didn't get said cookie at a Cookies by George location. At the store, I'm sure they don't sell stale cookies. Just very very yummy cookies. Mmm.)

If I got the cookie at the blood donor clinic because I donated blood, does that mean it actually wasn't free, so I do have a right to complain? Or does the fact that they never promised me Cookies by George and they don't always have Cookies by George mean it really was free?

Sympathy for the beaver

"All them birds and predators just take from the land, but the beaver always gives a dam."
--The Arrogant Worms

There's a buffer zone between the plant where I work and the nearest neighbourhood. The buffer zone is basically a park, but it's owned by the owners of the nearby plants. One day last week during my lunch break, I went for a walk with a co-worker, and we decided to walk down a trail that goes along a creek. As we got closer to the end with the beaver dam, we saw lots of freshly-cut trees lying on the ground, with lots of teeth marks where they were cut. The beavers had been busy.

When we got to the dam, we saw another co-worker. He showed us two beaver traps that had been set on the dam. (I'm not sure if they were set by the city government or by the company that owns the land.) He said a couple of beavers had been caught and killed earlier that week.

I couldn't help but be disappointed. They're killing our national animal! And then the less sympathetic side of me kicks in and reminds me that beavers are a pest when they're in a city. The co-worker who showed me the traps pointed out how few tall trees there are near that part of the creek, and he said it's because of years of beaver activity.

Maybe it's necessary to keep the beavers out of the city to keep the park in better shape, but I wish it wasn't necessary. Are these trees any more important than the ones they cut down to build the plants? Besides, I still think the area around the creek is beautiful even if all the trees are short. But maybe it would get a lot worse without any animal control around there, and maybe it's harder for predators to get into the city so beavers can naturally do more damage there.

He's smarter than you

Thanks to the magic of Photoshop and video editing, we can now watch Richard Dawkins rapping about atheism: