Either the 21st century’s slowing down, or copyright law’s finally starting to speed up south of the border. Jailbreaking your iPhone or equivalent may break your warranty with the manufacturer, but as of now, it won’t break the law. Almost makes me want to move to the US and get an iPhone. Apparently, this also works for unlocking your smartphone in order to move it to another carrier. Which is still technically against copyright law up here. You taking notes, Tony Clement? You’d better be.

Calling the last week or so busy would probably be an insult to busy weeks everywhere, but in a lot of ways, that’s exactly what it was. After the assessment of doom, I took it easy the rest of monday and did absolutely nothing. I needed the relaxation for the rest of the week. Tuesday night was pretty much the start of insanity. Small, relatively contained, but insanity.

Somehow, my nephew managed to be 10 months old without my knowing it. Which means if there’s something he could possibly get his hands on, he’s probably already done so. On tuesday, I went to give the mother a hand with minding him plus the two dogs. Fortunately for both of us, when I got there he was in bed and sleeping. Not fortunately for either one of us, by 7:00 the next morning he was up and ready to go, no questions asked. And go he did–all over the place whether we wanted to chase him there or not. We took him in to see the grandparents, and he was no less energetic when we got him there. This continued pretty much all day, with the exception of maybe an hour in the afternoon when we managed to actually convince him that it wasn’t, in fact, dangerous to his health to actually spend some time immobile for a few minutes. Right up until I think it might have been 9:00 or so, it was pretty nearly non-stop. We even took him for a short walk that afternoon–mostly because we could use the break, and then he’d pretty much just go where we pushed him. By the time we finally got him down for the night, we were more than ready to fall into bed shortly behind him. And, well, we did. And got just enough sleep that the 6:30 wake-up call he’d had in mind for thursday wasn’t quite as painful as I expected. As you could probably guess, most of thursday was spent–yep, doing the exact same thing. And taking turns trying to convince him to go down for a nap so we could get things done around the house that needed to get done–that to do list tends to get pretty long when the majority of your attention’s focused on one very adoreable, but very exhausting, kid. Of course, that didn’t actually end up happening; although between the two of us I think we might have managed to scratch one or two things off that list. Kevin dropped in to kidnap him back at about noonish or so, which gave us just enough time to try clearing off the rest of that list before we hit the floor from simple lack of energy. I don’t even remember most of what happened the rest of thursday beyond the usual routine, which is almost a safe bet for any day that isn’t overly filled with chaos. Of course, the couple days I just managed to survive meant I was pretty much a zombie for most of friday. I slept like the dead thursday night, and was the walking dead pretty well up until friday night.

While I was in recovery, and probably while I was less than conscious, Meka was doing her thing for the karaoke world championships. She’d made it to the state finals as of friday, and was competing there saturday night. My origional intent was to watch the event online, but technical difficulties–for once, not on my end–quickly put the breaks on that notion. I would learn later on that night that I ended up missing an awesome performance, giving her second place and a spot at the regional competition in August.

Yesterday was more time of the familial variety, with a meetup for breakfast then another run into the grandparents’ to kill a couple hours. Then it was back to taking it relatively easy for the evening.

This morning, I got my hands on the audio portion of Meka’s performances. And, with her permission, once she makes them available in video form on Youtube, they’ll make their way here. Now, I go chase after a couple dogs while the mother unit makes her way to work. She had a job interview this morning–glad one of us still gets those, so I’ve been over here since about 10:30. And will probably still be here at about 9:30 tonight. It’s gonna be a long ass day.

Busy or not, this week’s been surprisingly educational. A small sampling of things I learned, in list format. Because, really, who doesn’t like lists?

• Just because the kid’s not walking yet does not, in fact, mean he’s easy to catch.
• Or slow down.
• Or stop.
• Or keep track of if you’re not right behind him.
• When they decide they are not going down for a nap, you are not putting them there.
• Nor are you going to trick them into going for one. Don’t even try it.
• This includes playing with him even while he’s within an inch of falling asleep. He knows.
• This also includes his grandma sneaking off to the kitchen while his uncle plays with him even though he’s an inch from falling asleep. Again, he knows.
• This also includes his grandma sneaking off to the kitchen after he’s already asleep. I still can’t wrap my head around how, but he knows.
• I am apparently not the only one with a periodically screwed up sleep schedule. By the way, kid? This whole 6:30 thing is not healthy.
• The face kids that age make when you let them sample your coke? Awesome. Sorry, no video–I didn’t have my cell phone handy right then.
• Discovered by the nephew at breakfast: your food is good, but someone else’s food is always better.
• Yes, a 10-month-old can, in fact, get on top of your end table if he wants to bad enough.
• Or pull something off it.
• Or pull out the end table’s drawer if you aren’t presently leaning against it.
• Rules are meant to be broken. And gates that block off stairs to prevent infant head trauma are meant to be opened.
• Related: The fact you’ve just wedged the afore mentioned gate against the wall so you’d practically need a sledgehammer to remove it? That’s not discouragement. That’s a challenge.
• The second worst possible thing you could ever do is say no. The worst possible thing is mean it.
• Of course, he’ll probably do it anyway.
• Twice, just because you said no.
• And once more just for spite, I swear.
• 10 months old is not too young to start messing with people’s heads. Either that or this kid’s wickedly gifted.
• If and when I ever get around to having one, I’m investing in a goddamn leash. At least.

I used to be a Rogers cable subscriber. Yes, even though–kind of like now–I don’t actually watch a whole lot of content strictly on TV. And every so often, something happens to remind me why it is I pretty much won’t be returning to them for anything but the absolutely necessary any time in the near future. This week, it’s their response to the coming availability of netflix streaming in Canada this fall.

They have apparently decided, because God forbid anyone actually want to use their internet connection for more than just the basics, no one actually needs 95 GB/month of bandwidth (it used to be unlimited). So they’re lowering it to about 80 GB/month instead. For the same price. This isn’t an out of character response from Rogers by any means–when they launched their own online video on demand service at the end of last year, they did the same thing with a twist. Rather than lower the bandwidth cap when they launched that service, Rogers decided that, even though it was a service administrated and maintained by them, it would not be exempt from the bandwidth limitations the company imposed on its internet customers–thus making fairly sure people like me kept doing what they were originally doing to get a hold of TV content online, since there wasn’t a whole lot of benefit to doing it any other way.

Hey, Rogers? I kind of suspected I’d be doing the right thing when I told your telemarketting rep earlier to take your internet service and shove it right up your ass. Thanks for proving me right. Now, if you’re done completely screwing your customers, I’m still waiting to have that conversation with you. Not holding my breath, just waiting.

This month’s conservative conspiracy features the scrapping of the mandatory filling out of the long form census, to be replaced by an entirely voluntary filling out of same–my personal second choice, only to getting rid of the census entirely in all forms. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a conservative conspiracy without various media outlets and statistics organizations–most of which probably have their own methods for obtaining exactly the same information–calling it one. So what makes this a conservative conspiracy? the US already did it. And many of the reasons for the decision to at least give it a try? Yep, much the same as the anti-census reasons up here–mostly to do with privacy, etc. And the result?

Statistics Canada has said it can’t quite predict what the impact on the data will be, but the United States experiment might be instructive.

When a percentage of Americans were given the choice of filling out the national survey, the mail-back response rate dropped by a third.

And as some in Canada have warned about the impact on the long census, the response rates among certain groups became too low for reliable information. For example, the proportion of completed surveys dropped to about 20 per cent for blacks and Hispanics.

If folks are given a choice whether or not to fill out a government survey, they might actually decide not to–particularly if the offending survey asks questions that both they already have the answer to and aren’t really any of their business even if they didn’t. Who knew? And of course, because it was tried and they didn’t get a result they liked in the US, and they had the nerve to do so while George Bush was still in office, it gets branded a US/Canadian conservative conspiracy. Now, admittedly, I have absolutely no idea how information collection works in the US, but being as I go through at least the minimum every year, I’m quite familiar with how it works in Canada–or, at least, how it works for someone in my current position.

• Your current location for purposes of demographics is registered on just about every piece of municipal, provincial and federal paperwork you’ve ever in your life had to fill out.
• Your aboriginal status, where applicable, is registered–if you so choose–when you file your income taxes.
• That status is additionally registered if you choose to apply for your aboriginal status card.
• Your disability, if any, is registered–also at your choosing–when you file your income taxes.
• Additionally, at least in Ontario, you are registered as having a disability if you apply for and are accepted into the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
• In either case re: disability, medical proof must be documented with the overseeing government body before the appropriate forms–be they income tax or ODSP application–are signed off on by the ones doing the processing (I had a personal run-in with this catch a couple years ago).
• The government, through the Canada Revenue Agency, can usually–unless you’re doing something to try and sneak a little more money into your bank account and a little less into the government’s–get a pretty decent handle on your employment history, income history, duration of employment, how long you spent on employment insurance, how long you spent on any disability pensions/social assistance/welfare programs, how long you spent not doing much of anything (technically, even if your income is 0 you should still be filing taxes).
• Your race/ethnicity is also registered upon the issuing of a birth certificate, and presumedly when you’re filling out paperwork for immigrating to Canada, though considering the government is now looking at reviewing its hiring practices probably after this incident (Look out; it’s another conservative conspiracy!) involving someone being denied the chance to apply due to not being aboriginal or a member of a visible minority, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that’s probably not going to be quite as relevant.

Okay, so all that aside, why a volunteer long census? Or, because I’d prefer this option, why scrap the census entirely? The answer to both questions is really pretty close to the same, and is actually two-fold. The first and, for me, most important answer is we’re simply not all willing to cough up information many people consider to be personal/private information–yes, even if in most cases the government escentially already has that information. Attached to that is, as mentioned above–although I can’t speak for anyone else, from my perspective I don’t see the need in repeatedly handing over the same information to which the government already has access through one department or another. The second answer is a little more simple than that–some of the questions asked really don’t make a whole lot of sense, anyway. What difference is it to the government how many bedrooms there are in the house? And who’s definition of ‘bedroom’ are we using–just because the house is built as a three-bedroom doesn’t actually mean they’re all being used as bedrooms. Are they considering a special subsidy for families with 4 people and only 2 bedrooms?

Let’s take the discussion a step further, and let’s assume the Harper government had moved instead to discard the census entirely, not unlike the current European trend. Would the same groups be up in arms demanding the decision be reversed? Even if, for instance, they’d taken a page out of Britain’s–or even Sweden’s playbook instead?

Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark all use registry-based systems to track citizens from birth to death.

While the Scandinavian countries use central registries and periodic surveys to collect data on the population, Britain is looking at cancelling its census outright after the next survey in 2011.

Britain has taken a census every 10 years since 1801 with an exception for 1941 during the Second World War. The decision in Britain is partly driven by budgetary concerns but also due to concerns over accuracy.

Rather than a national headcount, Britain is looking for ways to gather data from existing public and private databases.

Would the various organizations supposedly dependant on statistics revealed by the census be just as up in arms about an outright cancelation of the census, whether or not it was replaced with the approach taken in either Sweden or Britain? Why, or why not? If privacy was a concern, then I could see bringing in a system as detailed as that used in Norway posing an issue. But, were the census to hit the pavement next year and a system not unlike that proposed by Britain–gaining access to the exact same data, or close to it, from other public and private facilities–put in place instead, would there be this much opposition to it? What’s the difference, really?

While admittedly, I’d personally love to see an outright cancelation of the census, realisticly that’s not about to happen. Instead, I’m happy with the census–at least the long form–being made voluntary. If you don’t have a problem with filling it out, then by all means do so. I don’t have a problem with you filling it out either. But all 3 levels of government already demand I hand over most of this information to them in one or another way, shape or form. And I do so, with no argument whatsoever. The government should then not have the authority to 1: force me to provide, yet again, all the same information and then some to which they already have all the access they could possibly want/need, and 2: put me in jail for declining to provide the government with information to which they already have all the access they could possibly want/need. And if that means making the long form census voluntary, then yes, let’s have a voluntary long form. If the ideal number of people end up not filling it out, then let’s look for alternative sources for that information–the public and private sector both have plenty. And for crying out loud, let’s try and stop comparing everything that goes on up here to what went on, or is going on, in the US. That tactic hasn’t really worked since the 2006 election.

She does a semi-decent job at pretending, though. Or is that just royally butchering?

According to the former U.S. vice-presidential candidate, her newly created word – ‘refudiate’ – is her contribution to the “living language.”

Please forgive me for not considering sending any future children to the Sarah Palin School of English Studies. Seriously.

Also: Hey, Sarah? The two worst possible reasons you could have ever come up with for trying to ruin the english language are “George Bush did it” and “Obama did it”. I mocked them for it, too; just not publicly–you’re special, so that’s more fun. Please, by all means, pass on your special version of the english language to your children/grandchildren. But for the love of everything sane, please stop screwing it up for the rest of us. It’d be appreciated.

So. That math assessment I was worried about? Yeah, it sucked. Not quite as bad as I figured it would–just enough to confirm I am, in fact, every bit as weak in the area of algebra as I thought. Which, roughly translated, means I am virtually algebraically useless. Still, I didn’t do nearly as bad as I figured I would on it–the combined score was up into the tripple digits, at least, which was more than I was expecting. A passing score was 140 or higher, which I couldn’t touch–I clocked out with 117. Testing lady seemed semi-optimistic, though, even if she couldn’t tell me whether or not the score was considered still good enough to get me into the program–I apparently have to wait to hear from someone higher up the food chain on that one. Because you all know how much I enjoy waiting for other people to get around to giving me a simple yes or no.

On the positive side, the hard part’s over. Now, I forget the application process even exists until such time as my phone rings with a yes or no and I can figure out what I’m doing from that point forward. I mean, besides spending the next month and a half brushing up on anything and everything related to the exact opposite of what I was studying last week–hey, their study guide didn’t say anything about multilevel algebraic fractions; how was I supposed to know? In the meantime, that vodka? Yeah, that one. I’ll take a double.

I’ve always been slightly jealous of my US counterparts, mostly because of the fact they had access to Netflix for DVD rentals and whatnot. And then I discovered torrents, and my jealousy took a small vacation. Rogers tried to implement something similar, but I do believe they broke it in more than a few places. And now that I don’t have an immediate need for Netflix usage, it’s apparently coming to Canada. Of course, the article doesn’t give an actual date, but still. I think someone’s trying to give me yet more reason to ditch the satelite. If Netflix or someone else starts streaming hockey and/or baseball games and doesn’t charge a small fortune to do it, they may actually succeed. Hear that, Shaw Direct? You’re on notice.

Oh, the insanity. The extra large order of insanity. I’m about to become supremely busy, and probably supremely flustered–all at once. Taking off to sign a couple things re: second career, which will probably be the easiest part of today. After that, and after at least one miniature meltdown in which I sincerely question my sanity for trying to get into a course that apparently heavily depends on material I hadn’t even looked at before last week in roughly 10 years, I run into Pembroke to be assessed on the afore mentioned material. This will be the last of the questionmarks as to whether or not I actually go any farther in the application/registration stage of getting into this program. And, after spending most of last week breaking my brain 6 ways from Sunday, and spending a couple hours this morning giving it a few more good kicks, I’ve reached a rather obvious decision. Either I have it nailed down for sure, or I don’t stand a chance in hell of doing so. Is it wrong to be contemplating vodka before noon?

Okay, so, here’s your basic summary. An airplane controled by artificial inteligence, capable of traveling huge distances and picking its own targets without human interference. Highly experimental, it may or may not actually enter production. But, it’s supposed to be able to perform more complicated maneuvers that wouldn’t be possible without the removal of the need for a pilot what with the stronger g-forces playing an issue. Sounding familiar, yet? It should be–particularly if you’re a millitary type movie fan. Apparently, the guys that came up with this idea are at least a fan of this one.

Hey, guys? You have awesome taste in movies. Really. But did you really have to go and recreate it in reality? Well, okay, if you must–but please, for the love of God, keep it away from the 20-year-old war scenarios, would you? Thanks.

Only in Quebec. A guy ends up with a property tax bill upwards of 200000 dollars. He’s not exactly enthused with the rate of increases to his taxes, and decides to make a point of telling the folks down at city hall exactly that by showing up, one assumes on or before the due date, with no fewer than 200000 dollars in pennies. Apparently, it required the use of a kiddy pool to carry them.

A Quebec man, fed up with his skyrocketing property taxes, carted more than 200,000 pennies down to City Hall to pay his bill. But he was denied, and asked to simply cut a cheque.

A cheque? Hell, I thought you wanted money! Tell you what, I’m just gonna go pay the whole thing off right now.

Like I said, where’s Foxworthy when you need him?

Of course, I didn’t exactly expect anyone would actually take me seriously. Now I know better. Guy gets in some hot water for drinking at a beach where alcohol’s not permitted. Okay, slap on the wrist, you’d think–this is Canada, after all. Except rather than give his actual name, he gave the name Andrew Moron instead. And was promptly fined for impersonation. I’ll now make the obvious suggestion that perhaps this guy should go right ahead and legally change his name. In the meantime, have a moron of the month award. No, it’s not named after this guy.

Because I didn’t need a grade 12 math credit to graduate from highschool, I didn’t take one. Because I didn’t invision me ending up going to college to put on paper skills I’d taught myself in recent years, I wasn’t overly concerned about it. Oopsies. Now, I get to enjoy the result of that oversight. I spent today going through well over 100 algebra-related equasions, getting progressively more painful as I did so. I’m nowhere near finished, and will probably have to devote tomorrow morning to the awesome that is Google in order to wrap my head around stuff I’ve probably completely forgotten in the nearly 10 years since I even cracked open a math textbook. All for the sake of demonstrating on Monday I’m not, in fact, completely math useless. I sincerely hope the 45 hours that will be the math course that’s apparently part of this program are worth it. Otherwise, I see a generous glass of vodka in my future. Possibly more than one. Now, excuse me–I need to go fix my brain.

I’ve been talking off and on about doing the college thing. I even went so far as getting set up to apply. Yes, 2 months ago. Things finally got rolling on that prospect around the beginning of June–after finally, after much arm twisting, getting my transcripts back from the highschool of doom. Application was sent off, money I didn’t have was paid, got the standard we’ll get back to you response, yada yada yada. Fast forward to this morning.

I get a letter from the college in my mailbox dated June 29. It’s all official like, and I consider that I might have actually been accepted to the course I’m considering taking. Get it open, have a read, and okay, there goes that idea. Instead, they’re requesting and requiring my presence to take a math assessment before they decide whether or not to accept me into this course. And, in typical Algonquin College fashion, this pre-admission assessment requires I pay them more money I don’t have. Woohoo–I struck gold. On top of that, because I’m not yet done receiving the wicked awesome news, the course I’m looking at starts at the beginning of September. Tuition for courses starting in September is pretty much due on Thursday. The second career program, who’s epic failure of logic I’ve already mocked, wants proof of acceptance before they’ll cough up a red cent towards my confirming my current education. I see a small problem here.

The problems just keep adding up, though. Lady I’m talking to has very little to no info on the course I’ve applied for. Indeed, most/all of the questions I asked her received as a response a simple “I’ll get back to you”. This includes how/when we might discuss the possibility of tweeking the course in such a way that I might actually be able to take it without inflicting a small series of strokes on me, the professors, and the folks over at the disability center–of which there is apparently only… um… two. Most if not all of those answers I am now waiting on depend on her getting in touch with someone involved with that program–who’s availability is, at the moment anyway, questionable at best. And who’s availability will probably be questionable at best for the next while. All this for a course starting in September.

I inquired on a precautionary basis about the possibility of shoving my effective application date back to the winter session, as they appear to offer a start for that particular program in that particular semester as well. And, again, she’ll get back to me after she gets a hold of mister questionable availability. That’s becoming the new catch phrase. And I think I’ll slap the next person who says it.

So, at the end of all that, I’m no farther ahead except I have one more phone number to add to my list and a whole lot of rather off-pissing questionmarks. The only potential bright spot in this one is she’s pegged tomorrow as when she expects to get back to me. At which point we can probably just do this all over again.

I was telling Jess earlier this afternoon it’s a very good thing I haven’t gone anywhere near politics–the burocracy would drive me to drink long before anything else did. As it is, the average joe burocracy that goes with doing just about anything is making me consider going postal. Fortunately I won’t have to debate doing just that for another day or two. In the meantime, I’ll be waiting on someone who’s waiting on someone else so I can tell someone else to stop waiting on me, and then wait on them to get me money so I can eventually, finally, get this whole being educated thing over with. Can it get much more messy?

I’m not exactly sure what my dream job is, but I know what it’s not–any job that largely depends on having to rely on other people. That, if things like this are any indication, would just succeed in pissing me off to no end. And inducing that small series of strokes I’m still trying desperately to avoid.

From the “that didn’t take long” department, my newly re-screwed-up routine. And it only took about 2 or 3 days after the departure of the girlfriend–er, oops, I mean fiance. Personal record for me, I think. Further proof I’m a goner schedule-wise? I was in the middle of reading something yesterday afternoon, and next thing I know it’s 4:00 this morning. Naturally, I’m all sleeped out at this point, so I’m up and mobile. At 4:00 this morning. Did I mention I’m not supposed to be an early morning person? On the bright side, I did have a couple things I needed to get done today so at least I haven’t reached the level of screwed up in which I wake up at 6:00 PM. But, really, 4? AM? Really? Yeah, clearly I have no sleep schedule. This is not cool.

Or I guess heatwave week would be more appropriate, what with this apparently going to be the norm for a while. Nothing says welcome to a Canadian summer quite like stepping outside and getting slapped in the face with it. At 10:30 in the morning. And yet, there’s a nasty rumour floating around they’re calling for thunder storms.

Saturday, it was tolerably hot. Yesterday was irritatingly hot. Today is just plain OMG hot. And we aren’t cooling off any time soon. Happy heatwave day, Ottawa. May your AC not suffer a catastrophic failure. And may all your beer–if you’re a beer person–stay cold. You’ll need it.

It’s official as of an hour ago. Jess made it to the bus station in one piece. We got there about noon, and roughly half an hour later she was boarding. We stuck around long enough to see she got off alright, then it was go time. Of course, it wouldn’t be a family outing if we didn’t spend most of it procrastinating. Enter the obligatory stop at Costco.

We managed to kill the better part of an hour there, just browsing and picking up a few things. Bright side: I got to demonstrate that geeky son is geeky. Dad’s been looking for a new laptop, so we took a walk through laptop central, which consisted of a small handful of units, some of which I promptly steered him very far away from. We didn’t end up buying one, unfortunately, but I do believe he got plenty of education. And for free, even.

After that, we finally got the hell out of Ottawa, stopping for lunch in Armprier at a local truck stop there. That chopped off another hour. Now, it’s go time for real; this car won’t stop until we hit my apartment. Which is more than I can say for the line of cars 8 km long we just drove past going the other direction. All told, I think this was a productive week. There were more than enough surprises for the both of us, and plenty of fun to go around. Already, we’re talking about my going down there for an engagement party. If it goes anything like the last week, I may need to sleep it off for a few days. And, if it’s anything like last week, it’s going to be awesomely worth it. We’re closing in on Pembroke, so if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go lose consciousness now.

Twitter, you’re awesome. Brilliant, in your own way. But, please, for the love of god, stop failing. I haven’t seen my mentioneds in two days, and I know you’ve gone hours without showing me anything else. And that’s just Today. Fix yourself, now, for crying out loud.

No love,
Me

PS: this includes whatever you did to the API limit. Again, stop failing.

I have this nasty little habbit of trying to find an up side to most situations–particularly situations that seem to centre around me and my current, shall we say, life related stresses. Jessica and I were actually talking about that during our all-night session of playing cards last night, and I’ve come to a sort of decision. This particular trait? Yeah, it pisses people off.

I always get questions from folks about what will I do if x, y and/or z happens, aren’t I worried about this thing, how do I handle that other thing. My typical answer to most of those particular questions? This is life. I have no control over it. Fussing around with it’s not gonna do anything more than give me a series of small heart attacks, so I just can’t see spending the time. Stuff doesn’t bother me like it does most people, probably for that very reason–I really can’t be bothered with it.

Yes, losing my job at Dell in 2008 kind of sucked. But a month later, I was in a relationship. Yeah, leaving Ottawa wasn’t exactly a highlight of my day. But, I’m close enough to do things like have a Christmas with my family with a minimal amount of inconvenience factor. Would I go back to Ottawa? Would I go back to working at Dell if they reopened and offered me my job back? Sure. But since that’s not exactly very likely, thinking about it and getting all uppity over it isn’t gonna do a damn thing. Instead, I’m trying to get my foot in the door at the local branch of Algonquin College. I’m still looking for work. I’m spending time with the nephew when I can. And I’m enjoying this new being engaged thing. That keeps me busy enough.

I could choose to have time to stress out about it. I could choose to make the time to consider the fact my bank account’s heading in the wrong direction. And I could probably make the time to have a small panic attack about it at least monthly. But why? Even if I did, I’m still unemployed. I’m still steadily getting slowly closer to broke. Flipping my lid over it won’t make me any less of either. Not flipping my lid over it won’t do it either, but it’s just so much easier–and, well, I’m lazy.

Much of people’s reactions are fairly predictable. They either don’t believe me, are confused for a few minutes, or end up getting irritated/pissed at me because this kinda thing doesn’t bother me. I can’t seem to wrap my head around why that is–although, granted, I also haven’t exactly been trying very hard. All I really know is I have absolutely no shortage of what I like to call realistic optimism. And, inexplicably, my positivity pisses people off. But, I’ve also come to another, slightly related decision just while writing this post. I won’t be finding or making the time to worry about that, either. Which, also, may end up pissing someone off. In a couple words, oh well.

Always up for a party, we ended the month–and began this one–with several smaller ones. If you’re not in a party mood and aren’t up for the whole Canada day thing, sit back with something cold and have a look at what people nearly as bored as me found of interest this month, as always, courtesy of Google Analytics.

• The line about being a geek in training isn’t exactly an inaccurate one. So when Linode cellebrated its birthday, of course I took advantage of what they were offering. It also reawakened the age old migration debate–and generated some interest among people wondering if they should, and how to do it. In answer to the first question, yes. In answer to the second? If you know, drop me a line.
• Local politicians are a tiny bit idiotic at times. Specificly with regards the new copyright bill being pushed through in Canada’s parliament. I’ve tried offering them a clue by four. My new favourite to target with it is minister Tony Clement. Sadly, I’m still failing. Oh well, maybe his replacement will catch on.
• It had to happen sometime, or so I’ve been told. It happened last Saturday. It was posted about on Tuesday. I ended up engaged, just in case you missed the half a dozen announcements we’ve been tossing out.
• And, because it wouldn’t be my blog without at least two techy entries, here’s your second. Twitter’s reply and conversation tracking features are good, but could benefit from some improvement. I have an idea how that could happen, not that I expect it to go anywhere. It’d still be wicked awesome if it did, though.
• And making a return to the popular posts list, my attempt to beat an answer out of Ontario’s government re: the current situation with the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) is generating a little more interest. After trying to get answers from folks and getting absolutely nowhere, I resorted to a couple somewhat strongly worded open letters to the premier, and leaders of all 3 major provincial parties. The first one’s over here.

Edit, 3 days later: I fail epically at HTML. Also, I fail at noticing my HTML related failures. I should stop doing that.

Tiger Woods is an awesome golfer. No doubt he’s already found himself a spot on the history pages next to that other awesome golfer man. Good for him. Now, here’s the problem. Ever since he got caught in someone else’s bed, it sort of seems we hear more about him now than before.

The guy just got a marital slapdown of the highest order. He just paid out 750 million dollars in a divorce settlement. And if he sneezes the wrong way off the field, and sometimes on it, he gets twice as many cameras stuck in his face.

My only problem with Tiger is there’s way too bloody much of him. He’s still a great golfer. He’s still a legendary figure among his fans. And he still isn’t any more or less a jerk for what he did to his family than anyone else. Turn off the damn cameras already. Let the man do his thing. Let the golf specific media and fans follow him around if they choose to; meanwhile, don’t we have a politician to take a crack at ruining? Hey at least that hasn’t been overdone. Oh, wait. Nevermind.

I was going through Facebook on Jess’s behalf earlier, seeing as her machine would probably die if she tried to use it over there and well, I was here doing other things anyway. Apparently, they have this new security feature put in place–if one can call it a security feature. Apparently, if you’ve not logged in to your account on that computer, you get to jump through a series of convoluted hoops just to get to the point of saying “by the way, yes, I own this account”. One such hoop involved identifying people who were tagged in a specific set of photos. Not a problem if you spend all your time on Facebook, or can see, but a right proper pain in the royal ass for folks who don’t or can’t.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t give you–or doesn’t make readily apparent, anyway–an option to bypass this supposed ID varification check when you’re logging in from a new computer. Which means we got to spend an hour sitting here while she, being the most sighted one of us at an impressive not very, squinted at the photos presented and tried–usually with absolutely no verifiable results–to identify/recognise folks being shown to us. With no way to bypass it and try something else, and a need to wait an hour or so for it to let us get in again, we eventually just decided to say to hell with it. Fortunately, after we managed to get done what needed doing.

Now, I get the whole security thing re: trying to make sure folks are authorised to actually have access to the account. But folks, we’re either totally or nearly totally blind over here. You’re showing us pictures. What in the hell are we supposed to do with them? And, just for the record, I was perfectly authorised to access the account in question–just not authorised according to Facebook. Meanwhile there’s enough of a back door that I could actually do what needed doing without being authorised according to Facebook, thus rendering whatever security checks they were trying to have, um, rather pathetically useless.

Hey, Facebook? I’m not a hacker, honest. I’m just blind. Thank God, really–you didn’t exactly make it difficult. Just irritatingly inconvenient. And I’d still like to know the logic behind flashing random photos for folks to stare at, like they’re gonna remember most of them. I don’t even remember half the things I’ve probably been caught on camera doing and I’ve been accused of having a good memory. So. yes. Please, stop failing. It’s bad for you.

Also: Accessibility? What accessibility? On Facebook? Surely, you Gest. Devs, design smarts. Get you some. It should not take me guessing to change a semi-simple setting. Only you would think otherwise. Again, stop failing. It’s bad for you.

Folks will be aware Jess has been here since Saturday. what many aren’t aware of, at least until now, is what happened within 24 hours of her arival. More specifically, it became very official that she’d be stuck with me for about as close to forever as she could tolerate. On saturday afternoon, I officially asked her to marry me. And, surprising everyone except the two of us, she said yes. Effective as of then, we’re officially one step closer to that fateful dive off the deep end.

We haven’t set a date yet, but at least now we can start more seriously talking about it. The majority of the week thus far has escentially been mostly made up of doing just that–I had no idea just how many people actually end up getting told these things. So far, we’ve made and received quite a few phone calls on it, not to mention sharing the news in person. By the time she goes back she’ll probably be sick and tired of talking about it–just in time for the folks she hasn’t told yet to catch sight of the ring.

I had the ring picked out a couple weeks in advance, a bit before she finally purchased the ticket. I wanted it to be a surprise not just to her, but to family/friends on both sides of the equasion. So I was pretty much doing everything in secret at that point. That was probably the hardest part–talking to her and avoiding saying what I really wanted to say when she asked if anything eventful happened that day. But, shocking the hell out of me, I actually somehow managed to do exactly that. And keep it quiet amongst the non-immediate family–something ordinarily nearly impossible to do on account of info travels fasater than a wild fire in california on a bad day.

The rest of the week thus far was pretty low key, in comparison. Had a barbecue on sunday at the parentals’ place, for a combination of cellebrating all three month-end birthdays–mine, my mom’s, and the sister-in-law’s. The engagement became officially official there, when the parents, brother and sister-in-law all got a chance to gawk at the ring. And I was cautioned away from making the same mistake my brother did. Fortunately, that particular mistake can’t be duplicated so I’m safe in that department. Yesterday was equally low key–we stuck around the apartment, flaked out, enjoyed various degrees of lazy, had pizza brought in from the local place of awesome, cracked open the vodka and had our own, personal type engagement party. That lasted until 7:00 this morning, before we grabbed 4 hours’ sleep. the rest of the day, dead as it is, leads us to the announcement here.

This is something I know we’ve both been wanting for a while, so the decision to do it over the weekend was probably the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make. I suspect the rest of this week will probably be devoted to spreading the news even more so–hint: it’s up on Facebook if anyone’s interested. I suspect the next couple weeks, at least for her anyway, are going to consist of telling everyone else back home who hasn’t already heard yet. And thhe foreseeable future? It will probably consist of marriage/wedding plans. As for right now? I still have some evening time to spend. And I think I’ll spend it trying to get a little more used to this whole newly engaged thing. On the bright side, we already know the family approves. On the not so bright side, the poor girl may end up suffering further brain damage as a result. But, she’ll survive. Either that or we’ll be taking up refuge in someone’s basement until the insanity passes. Whatever this ride ends up doing, it’s gonna be a hell of a lot of fun. At least, it’d better be. I demand it.

So. Some folks already know, and others are about to. Jessica’s presently on her way up here for a week. She left at 20 minutes to 2 this morning, intent on catching a 6:30 connection. There weren’t enough warm bodies going to toronto, so they had to send another bus. That other bus was supposed to be right behind them. They waited in Buffalo until pretty close to 5:00 or so before finally crossing the border. Which, escentially, means no 6:30 connection for Jessica. Fortunately, that doesn’t put too bad a dent in our plans–we can just leave to pick her up 2 hours later. But now, she’s stuck catching a 9:30 bus to Ottawa from Toronto, which means by the time she gets here, she’ll have been on the go for nearly 16 hours. And that’s assuming we come directly here. Factoring in the fact she’s been awake since yesterday morning, and I probably wouldn’t want to be her body right now. Hopefully, the trip she’s taking at 9:30 doesn’t break. In the meantime, Greyhound, please stop failing. Thanks.

For all the screaming and crying about a lack of abortion funding in Canada’s family planning proposal, looks like that group that’s about set to clog up most of Toronto has finally reached what you could call an eleventh hour agreement. And, surprise surprise, they agreed with Canada. Well, sort of.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s maternal health plan will get the green light from the world’s most powerful economies, despite earlier criticism from family planning advocates who complained that no specific funds were allocated for abortion.

Instead, the G20-funded project will allow each nation to allocate the funds as they wish, which opens the door for abortion funding by countries which deem it necessary, Fife reported.

“Each nation will develop their own plans,” he said Thursday night, adding that Canada will pump $1 billion into the plan.

Hey, if the G20 adopted an attitude like that about other things–hello, stimulous versus cutbacks–we’d actually have something resembling progress going on here. And less of a need for the G20. Okay, file that under “when hell freezes”. Next?

We felt this while out investing in things of a grocery related nature. Apparently, the center of the earthquake was about 50 KM northeast of Ottawa–in other words, right in between Ottawa and Pembroke. We didn’t feel a whole lot–kind of like the mall we were in just sort of twitched a little. Windows were rattling, but nothing went flying or anything. We very nearly considered just getting the hell out of the mall. We were surrounded by glass, with concrete cielings, so if it was anything more major than that, the parking lot would have been a hundred times safer.

There’s a rumor floating around that it was felt as far down as Detroit, and into New England. Toronto’s supposedly had several evacuations as a result–as has Ottawa, according to the linked article. Twitter’s alive with speculation of at least one aftershock, but if there are any, they didn’t reach us up here.

We survived the earthquake intact and relatively as sane as we were before. The most exciting part was convincing some of the folks around us that yes, you did, in fact, just witness an earthquake. Spending three years on Vancouver Island has its advantages. Who says you never find anything exciting while running a simple arrand?