Down the rabbit hole

I think my computer is winning the fight to pull me down the rabbit hole of useless information. It won a round the other day by a convincing margin.

I was powering down to begin my afternoon meditation on the pressing issues of the day—whom to entrust with the keys to Canada’s public purse, how to discharge my duty to my neighbours in Japan, how they get the jam inside the new Tim Horton’s strawberry banana donut—when the computer very casually said “I guess you don’t really care who the 2011 winners of the Canada’s Most Trusted Brands awards are?”

“No, I don’t,” I replied.

“It’ll only take a minute,” replied the computer. “I wonder whether Pepto-Bismol will hold on to its 2010 crown as Canada’s most trusted stomach ailment remedy?”

“Well, now you mention it…” I thought. No harm in letting lunch digest for a further minute or two. Gives me a little nugget of information to use in social situations to show off my worldliness.

Turns out I’ll have to wait a little longer. Only some of the category announcements are out, and they are being leaked by the winners. Toyota dealers are doing a victory dance about being named passenger car manufacturer of the year (a three-peat). Re/Max head office has spread the news of its retention of the residential retailer crown. Even Sun Life has sent out a restrained press release with an actuarially verified calculation showing how it has improved its winning vote total in repeating as life insurance company of the year.

But the 2010 results are out there, and now I’ve got to know the 2011 score. Can Pepto-Bismol retain its title belt? That’s only the beginning of the drama. Will Folgers outflank Maxwell House in the ground coffee category? Can the EverReady Energizer pull ahead of the Duracell Coppertop in the batteries department? Will Kellogg’s hang on to the breakfast cereal manufacturer crown, or give way to an old rival like General Mills or a dark horse such as Weetabix? Will this be the year Knorr soups finally leapfrog over Campbell’s? Will last year’s ties (between TD Canada Trust and RBC Royal Bank, and between Best Western and Holiday Inn), finally be broken? How can Blackberry be the most trusted mobile communications device while Apple is the most trusted mobile entertainment device? And dare we ask whether Old Spice and Secret are going to continue, respectively, as male and female deodorants of the year?

An hour later, my computer spoke just one word: “gotcha!” And it was right. I hung my head in shame. While surveys such as this must mean something to people in the marketing business, they are absolutely irrelevant to me. Almost anything else I might have chosen to do with my time would have better enriched my life. I have ingested a narcotic. I have been sucked down the rabbit hole.

Wallowing in my failure of self control, I began to feed my “‘most’ list” habit. I started to plumb last summer’s list of Most Trusted Canadians. David Suzuki came out on top, followed by Mike Holmes, Michael J. Fox, HRH The Queen and Lloyd Robertson. The next five were Sheila Fraser, Stephen Lewis, Stephen Harper, Peter Mansbridge and Rick Hillier. Very interesting.

Now some sense can be made of Don Cherry’s enhanced goatee: he’s hoping to crack the top 10 by emulating the leader. And if we see Peter Mansbridge going shirtless, with overalls, on The National, we’ll know why: it’s a matter of personal pride to overtake Robertson, and he’ll do what it takes. And just where, may we ask, are Tommy Hunter, Jean Beliveau and the Polkaroo? How the sands shift under our feet!

Then I was on to the list of Canada’s Top 25 Best Places to Live. How could Ottawa—Ottawa!—emerge on top two years in a row? The only explanation I could come up with was that Quinte West was not included in the survey. Kingston did well at fourth, although it slipped from second last year; Belleville was a disappointing 55th, although it was up from 103rd place. Toronto seemed accurately placed at 88th, just behind Ingersoll.

The County was not included in the survey either, although I experienced a minor heartskip when I saw Wellington described as the winner of the ‘best population growth’ category. Make that “Centre Wellington,” a place near Fergus. At some point, I stepped back and said to myself, “you’d have to be an idiot to get hooked on this stuff.”

“My point exactly,” replied the computer.

David Simmonds’s writing is also available at www.grubstreet.ca.