I’ve written a couple entries referencing the anual fiddle festival held up at Pembroke’s Riverside park every September around labour day. On a random wim, the parents and I decided to shuffle over there tonight to see what we could find for entertainment. And, as often happens, we found exactly that. And this time, I even managed to recognise a few of the songs that were being played.

Just to get a general idea of how things are set up around there, everyone who’s competing in the events of this weekend–and probably a few spectators who just want an excuse to party–piles into Riverside park, which is escentially a special event grounds that just so happens to double as a beach and very nice area to walk when it’s not jam packed with people. From about a week before labour day right up until then, when the competition shuts down, there are trailers, trucks, buses, and all manner of other things. When they’re not competing, each site tends to do their own thing so far as performances. Most of them are little more than social gatherings among friends. When the competition isn’t going, it’s almost impossible to distinguish the folks who’re just there for the party from the competitors. At that point, it generally amounts to a very glorified outdoor kitchen party. They have guitars, at least one piano, some folks doing vocals depending on the group, and of course, a crap ton of fiddles. There are stepdancers as well but I think we showed up too late to see those. They’re selling food–mostly of the burger and fries variety, and if you didn’t provide your own alcohol you probably don’t have to go far to get some. Mostly though, people show up there for the music.

We spent the better part of the evening, or at least a good 2 hours and change of it, walking from one site to the next doing just that. We’d hear a decent song or two, hang out there for a few, then when they started getting into areas we weren’t in the mood for, we’d move on to the next one. The selections were almost all folk/country or some mix of the two–it’s a fiddle festival; what the hell do you want? The usual selection at least tonight was anywhere from probably 1960 through to about 1990, though I did catch a song or two that sounded newer. At the end of it, my legs were about ready to go on strike right there, and I don’t think I was the only one in that state, so we packed it up and slid back to our respective houses.

I try to make it to that competition–or, at least, the afterparty–at least once every year. This is one of those rare things that, even if I were still living in Ottawa, I’d have to make the trip back here just to check it out. It’s probably the one thing that actually makes Pembroke feel more like home than, say, the apartment I had prior to my moving here. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t move away if given the option. But I’d definitely be coming back at least once a year, right during that first week in September. Call it one of my very few unwritten rules.

If you happen to have some free time this weekend and are in or near the area, drop by Riverside park in Pembroke and check it out. I believe the players start wrapping things up on Sunday, but if I’m not mistaken some may stick around until Monday instead. If you’re interested in checking it out, have a map, of sorts. And if you do decide to go, let me know what you think. I’d be curious to see if it’s just a Pembroke area thing. If I get bored enough, I might end up back there out of random curiosity myself. Hey, that wouldn’t hurt my feelings any.

I was originally planning to leave Rochester a little over 2 weeks ago due to potential school things. Those potential school things ended up falling through, so I got to stay for the rest of the month. I was due to leave this past saturday, on account of I have a potential job prospect–albeit not one I’m overly enthused about, but a job (more on that in another entry). For reasons of convenience–mostly that of the folks who will be my ride from the bus station, that date’s been pushed back. So now, in order to take a stab at securing myself something resembling gainful employment, I officially pack up and depart for the other side of the great divide tonight, for a tomorrow noonish arival. Which, I won’t deny, doesn’t hurt my feelings in the slightest–it’s potentially a win for me, and later Jess, either way this thing goes.

Going back means I can start the ball rolling and get me employment, which escentially makes me more able to aford to come down here more often and later bring her up to Canada on a more permanent basis. If it ends up falling through the cracks, I won’t end up with the employment, but I’ll have more free time–if not necessarily the money–to spend with, or at the very least keeping in close contact with, the fiance. Which is beneficial for several dozen other reasons. From where I sit, I can’t really go wrong.

If rules are made to be broken, then plans are made to be changed. And these ones have been changing since I left Pembroke in July. And you’ll probably never hear me complain.

Last year, I had an opportunity to take a shot at participating in a survey for the general accessibility of certain features of then current cell phone models. If I’m not mistaken, it focused almost entirely on the ability to make payments for certain things via your cell phone, among other things. My name was on the list for that, though for one reason or another I never actually got in to participate fully–too bad, as they were offering to pay me for my time.

Flash forward to yesterday. I get an email while I’m going through finding political morons to mock, inviting me to another focus group with the option of also or instead doing a survey by mail. Like the last one, the focus group will be held in Ottawa by the Neil Squire Society. Like the last one, it’s focus is on the ability for the visually or otherwise disabled to make use of certain aspects of cell phones–in this case, the ability and ease of use when it comes to obtaining emergency services via cell phone.

The only difference between this one and last year’s is I’m not currently actually living in Ottawa–not yet, anyway. So getting to the actual focus group could require some creative effort. Still, much like the last one if it comes up, I fully intend to be there. Blame my interest in most if not all things accessible. And, hey, they offered me money last time. I’m not stupid.

Remember the assessment of doom I was studying for? The one I only had a week to get everything accomplished accessibility/preparation-wise before it was either going to make or break my attempt at further education? Yeah, that one. It broke. Badly. I got word of the proof of such brokenness last night. It was no shocker, though admittedly part of me was kind of hoping for a small miracle. I don’t think it’s very over yet, though–as I mentioned before, I did the test on a week’s notice. The test included algebra, and the extent of its accessibility after a week’s notice consisted of someone reading the questions to me, me trying to remember the equasions, going over most of them in my head and not having much ability to actually check things on my own. The chick doing the reading told me she was surprised at the result I got considering, well, I had virtually not a whole lot more than what I was allowed to bring with me–the cell phone I was planning to use for a calculator. So was I, but given a half-assed shot at doing it on my own I also know I’d of probably done considerably better.

It’s on that thought that I decided, within about 30 seconds of getting word of that from my side of the border last night, that today would be the day heads rolled. So calls were made, and one of the names on the bottom of the denial letter got to have a very pleasant conversation with yours truely. Surprisingly, there was no yelling/screaming/what have you–I didn’t even curse, though I had plenty of them floating around in the back of my mind just in case. I informed her due to the fact it was either do it on a week’s notice or not at all, in spite of the fact I pretty much told the chick when I was speaking to her I didn’t figure anything could be done in a week’s time to make it any easier for her or me, I was pretty much a step behind from the outset. I was even nice enough to explain to the person in question, who gave me the “I’m just a lowly admissions officer” shpeel, that I asked about having it, and/or my entry date into the program, pushed back to allow for the needed time to figure a way through whatever accessibility issues should so happen to crop up.

Since the decision supposedly came from significantly above her pay grade, she told me she’d speak to the one who ended up making the final decision. I got the slight impression she was sort of being noncommittal, but we shall see. So she said she’d see what she could do, I threw the number here at her where she, or the person(s) above her pay grade who made the decision, can reach me, and now we wait. In the meantime, I’m closing in on the deadline for getting things submitted to second career, and I still have absolutely no idea what if anything I’m about to actually be getting done.

So, I may or may not actually have plans for September. I may or may not actually have the backing for said plans in September. And I may or may not have a bit of time left to try and twist a few arms in order to secure both. It’s a very good thing I’m not averse to doing things the hard way. I’ve a sneaking suspicion I’m about to do exactly that at full speed.

Update: I got my phone call. And surprise, more waiting games. This time, I get to wait until next tuesday, at which point someone *else* I’ll need to get a hold of re: the mess this testing thing’s becoming will be in. If I were the overly paranoid type, I might be slightly suspicious of the fact I got that phone call after writing this. If someone’s trying to tell me something, I don’t think I’m getting the message they think I am.

So I’ve been on the US side of the border for nearly two weeks now, and busy as all get out for most of it. Part of the busy was spending the majority of this past friday evening at the Rochester public market. We were planning to check that out anyway, Jess and I, since she’d only been there maybe once before me, and of course I hadn’t been there yet. So i cruised by where she was getting off work, picked her and Kyle–who conveniently also hadn’t been there yet–up, met Heather over there and we crashed it for a few hours. And in doing so, were treated to a free performance by Donna the Buffalo. Apparently, both Kyle and Heather have heard/seen this group live before, which left both Jess and I to experience it for the first time. Hell of an experience, really.

From right around the first or second song, I had a feeling it’d be a pretty damn near wicked awesome performance. Of course, anyone who can perform “Ring of Fire” and not completely kill it deserves at least a shot at not making me cringe. I didn’t cringe. Instead, I find myself rather unsurprisingly in the category of those who highly approve. I don’t think any of my partners in crime were entirely all that surprised by it either–I’m looking at you, Heather.

They only played for an hour and a half, give or take–a lot less time than I thought they’d get, but apparently the organizers decided to do the headliner thing first. Still, it was long enough for me to decide when I do return to the cooler side, I’m gonna have me some downloading. Because I don’t have some downloading right now, have a video instead. Not Friday’s performance, but a performance. I approve by this. And if you find yourself not approving, evaluate your musical tastes. Right now. Enough said.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Everyone knows about my love afair with Linux. Specificly, Gentoo. Unfortunately, it being a source-based distribution means escentially any system maintenance task–like, say, installing a new program or updating an existing one–is potentially going to be a bit of a memory hog. Hence why I started using Linode for a lot of my playing around work–they give me an environment I don’t need to worry about breaking, the tools with which to potentially break it, and a price tag that doesn’t end up breaking my wallet. And, as of yesterday, they’re handing out more memory with which to break things. Now, one of my VPS’s on Linode presently has more memory than my only VPS on DreamHost, for about the same price. Woopsies. You know what that means.

It’s once again time to consider tossing around that age old debate. To slowly move everything away from DH, or not to. That is the eternal question. I’ve been pretty happy with their overall performance for the last 5 years, moving from shared to now VPS hosting during that time–and, yes, branching out to Linode as it’s been needed. They’ve had a few network issues, and I’ve had to prod tech support in the rear end a time or two, but they’ve been decent. In comparison, I’ve almost never actually needed to talk with Linode’s tech support–most server related issues I can fix myself, and most hardware/network related issues they’re usually aware of before I am. Still, when needed, both DreamHost and Linode have been pretty quick with their assistance. Why do I still stick with DH? Simply put, the manually editing of Apache‘s configuration files. I’ve done it before, on a minor skale or two. Much more than that and I fear it may result in irreparable brain damage. Similarly, setting up and maintaining an email system is probably second most likely to give me brain damage–even if I do decide to go with Postfix and have a pretty semi-nifty solution to the general, day to day administering of things like creating new users, etc. I could, presumedly, just let Google Apps handle email, but there’s something to be said about actually being able to control a semi-important system like that myself. And, if I did move entirely self-hosted, I’d probably want that.

So, while I figure out if and/or when I should start this whole migrating to my own server thing, I fully intend to take complete advantage of the extra memory being dumped on me by one of my awesome hosts. Which means those folks I’m currently hosting on one of those servers? Yeah, I’m looking at you. You’re about to get a performance boost. Happy 7th birthday, Linode. Even if it is a day late and a dollar short.

There’s a study out that basicly says coffee doesn’t do much for regular drinkers of the stuff. Now, granted I don’t consider myself a regular–meaning daily–coffee drinker by any means–I get my caffeine from other sources if I need it, but I’m going to just kind of give this report a big fat no. I’m not a morning person by any stretch. Wasn’t before coffee, or other sources of caffeine, am not any more so after. But, if I’m going to be required awake and mobile before the sun’s up–believe it or not that has been known to happen, there will be coffee involved. That’s a rule. One of three things will happen. The world will wait until at least 10 to start turning, there will be coffee present should the world–and I–be required mobile prior to 10, or at least one individual–noteably the individual who decided to wake me–will probably die. I’m not a coffee/caffeine addict by the standard definition. I’ve gone several days without anything caffinated. But not before 10. Trust me, it’s for your own safety.

This blog post by Xup brings up an interesting point on the matter of advertising, product placements, and such. A perhaps odd thing for me to be writing about, considering the Google ads present on my blog, but I think it explains my take on advertising in general and why, despite whatever opinions I may or may not have of some companies, I have no problem with ads in general. It started out as a comment to the original entry, but as I have a rather large policy against writing an essay on someone else’s blog, it gets pasted below.

If I’m going to end up buying something, I’ve usually already found a use for it before I seriously considered buying it. An example is one you’ve already questioned–the cell phone. I’m not very often actually at home, and if I’m looking for work, which I’ve been doing for a couple years now, people still need to be able to get hold of me. And, since not everyone–unfortunately–has taken to submitting job offers via email, that means cell phone. Additionally, just as soon as it becomes a viable option, my land line’s going out the window. But, I’m still going to need to be reachable by folks, including the afore mentioned potential employers.

Also, I tend to gravitate towards products that aren’t exactly actively advertised. For example, yes, this computer’s a Dell. But, it’s one of their lower end models who at the time–and, indeed not at any time to my knowledge since–wasn’t exactly getting a whole lot of marketting from the company. Indeed, I could have gone with an entirely different manufacturer–or none at all, as my laptop was still working; just very, very slowly. But for what I intended to use it for, the laptop wasn’t going to cut it. And, to be perfectly honest, at the time I was working for Dell, which automatically meant they could pretty much beat just about any price out there for a comparable machine–the, perhaps, second time I’ve taken advantage of what you might consider another form of advertising; employee discounts.

I could have waited until the iThingoftheweek came out, and bought it then. Since according to the advertising it’s all supposed to do everything except walk your dog–that’s in Apple’s next model. But, I didn’t need a touch screen. I didn’t need an MP3 player–I don’t even use the one I was given for a gift a while back. And everything else Apple’s equipment can do, I’ve got a cheaper piece of equipment around here that does the exact same thing and gets quite regular use.

I don’t think advertising’s so much designed to force people to make a purchase, either big or small, they wouldn’t have otherwise made–those with very little self-control would have probably done it anyway. But rather, I see ads as more of a way to inform people what’s out there. “Need a way to do xyz? Here’s what we can offer, and here’s why we think you’ll like it.” At the end of the day, you’re still the one deciding if, indeed, you’ll like it for the reasons they say–or, even, if you’ll like it for some other reason. If the answer’s no, it won’t get bought. Sadly, a lot of people are quicker to buy things than decide whether or not it’s something they’ll actually get anything out of, which is probably what at least some advertisers are counting on. But, I believe more so during the last year or so thanks to the recession, I think you’re going to start seeing less and less of that kind of reaction. And, consequently, less and less in the way of so-called brand loyalty, though that may warrant a separate post to explain. You’re half-right, though–if companies don’t advertise, they won’t sell anything. But that has more to do with a lack of awareness than it does a lack of a market.

You mentioned the microwave as an example of a created need. And, indeed, on that you’re right–but it was a need created by us, meaning the average consumer, in much the same way as the fast food industry was a created need. The more we as a society become a market of convenience, wherein we have 50 things to do and 2 hours to do them, the more supposed needs that will be created–again, see cell phones with email capability as an example. Also see 24/7 call centers, wherein there was apparently a demand to have, for example, banks set up centers that were open outside of the normal working day so people could still manage to get what they need accomplished outside their normal hours of operation. And, yes, those banks often times do advertise that–”Open eight ’til late, six days straight.”. But, company executives didn’t just wake up one morning, call a meeting and ask themselves if they could convince everyone else to drop their current bank just by extending their hours. If there wasn’t already a need for it within their existing customer base, it would never have been done. The fact they can then advertise it as a benefit of switching banks is a bonus–and, admittedly, not a very good one as the other banks started following shortly thereafter.

In-store, or in-restaurant sales are another matter entirely, and I’m not sure how relevant they would be to the overall scheme of advertising–they’re an in-store sale, likely one you wouldn’t be aware of had you not already been to that store. So, you’re already interested in something they have to offer. They’re just also saying “By the way, if you use this, we have it available for $x.xx for y bottles.” If you’re already using whatever it is they’re selling, you’re more likely to buy more of it. If you’ve been thinking about trying it, or have tried it before because someone else bought it, you’re more likely to buy it. And if you had no interest in purchasing it to begin with, the fact it’s on sale likely didn’t alter that interest. I’ll go back to your experience with VitaminWater. Had your daughter not brought some home, would you have bought it just the same?

I’m not saying there aren’t a varitable selection of crooked companies who’d just love to show you an ad for something that can cure cancer, get you to pay out your life savings for it and watch the product rather inexplicably fall over dead. But, largely due to the answer to another supposedly created need, now people are able to conduct a lot of their own research should they so choose–again, I’ll use your example of VitaminWater. Couldn’t do that 20 years ago, or even really 10 years ago. There’s no such thing nowadays as a market lock. If Apple puts out a completely crap product, and you see enough people having problems with that completely crap product, if you were initially interested in purchasing it you probably aren’t now. You may go for something else, you may stick with what you have. The advertising didn’t make you do either. All it did–indeed, all it can do–is tell you the product in question is available, and this is what it does. You can either use that product in your daily routine, or not. You can either buy the product hoping to find a use for it, or not. You can either completely ignore the advertisements, or not. If you’re looking, here’s what’s out there. And, here’s what we think it can do for you. If you’re not, it’s probably little more than white noise. And if they can come up with 50 ads to show the same thing you have no interest in obtaining, they’ll pretty well all be white noise. You do the shopping, at the end of the day. Yes, advertisers are counting on it, but they can’t fill a hole if there’s no hole to fill. If you got along just fine up until now without, for example, a cell phone, you’re not about to wake up tomorrow morning and decide you need one. And to this day, there’s not an ad invented that can change that, much to the dismay I’m sure of a few cell phone manufacturers.

And a small update, because clearly when I wrote this post, I was having a spelling fail evening. Corrected. Sorry, Xup!

I mentioned a few days ago I was looking into options that don’t include me spending the foreseeable future on ODSP. One of those options, which as I expected didn’t pan out, was a conversation had between the employment assistance service I’m going through and Online Support, the only really non-retail/construction/what have you company in town who I’ve been turned down by before on matters of accessibility–specifically, they didn’t particularly feel very inclined to be accessible. The end result of that conversation was exactly as I’d expected, so that option was quickly shelved in favour of a more constructive, if more expensive–for either me or the government–one. Specifically, a return to the environment of school.

Ontario has a sort of second career program, in which if you’ve been laid off as a result of the recession folks are now saying we’re coming out of, and fall into certain criteria, you may or may not be able to secure funding to head yourself back to school and either expand on skills you currently have or gain new ones. This is supposed to make you more marketable/hireable/generally approachable by employers. Unfortunately, before I ieven get to figure out if I do or don’t qualify for the appropriate funding, there’s about half a million bureaucratic hoops I have to jump through, some of them twice. first in the apparent mountain of boxes I have to check off is a crap ton of research I need to do to figure out exactly what course I want to take, at what college, and how much more x course at y college is than the same course offered at z college–hello, OCAS. Long time no see.

Then, I call my person on Monday, bury him in the accumulated course list he’s asked for, answer a few dozen more questions re: exactly what I want to do/where I want to end up/how much I want to make/how many houses I plan to own in the next 5 years, probably book an appointment, go in and fill out a crap ton of paperwork, then cross my fingers and hope for the best. All of this to try and get me into some course, somewhere in Ontario, by the fall semester. Lucky for me, I already have a pretty freaking good idea where I want any future education I get a crack at to put me. Now, the trick is to put it on paper, find relevant options in Ontario, pray our otherwise stingey government doesn’t laugh at me, and see what comes next. If everything goes well, I may not have a clue where I’ll be living in a year or two but I’ll know where I’m going to college/university/whatever. Or I’ll be working. And if all doesn’t go well, I’ll be in the same situation minus the college thing. Can’t argue with that. Well, I can, but it won’t do much good. So, instead, I do believe it’s research time. Thank God Ottawa’s still got a ton of techy courses, even if the tech market in general’s kind of drying up a little.

Growing up, I always had a sort of obsession, if you will, with various types of music–mostly listening, but later on, playing. It started with the piano, and as I got out of highschool and finished college, it started graduating more towards the guitar–I blame my uncle, who could probably at least bullshit his way through a song on the thing if you let him. I’d planned to keep at both, but then life sort of happened. I ended up working, and fairly long hours at that–not that I’m complaining or anything; the paychecks were awesome. The down side? It left not a whole lot of time for keeping up with either instrument. So, that kind of gradually fell by the wayside. Then I moved back here, became borderline broke, and subsequently unable to pick it back up again. Oh, I still halfway dabble at the piano every so often, but nothing quite like I used to–took too long to decide to get back to dabbling, I guess.

I’ve always had a good ear for music, even when I wasn’t actively participating in lessons–I did all my learning by ear, for example. Because of that, I’ve sort of developed an ability, much to the dismay of the few people I know who can actually sing well, to virtually deconstruct a song and pick up on things that, well, may or may not benefit from some improvement. I still have that ability, even though it’s been a few years since I’ve actively put it to some semblence of use. So, I haven’t completely lost my inclination towards music, even if it hasn’t exactly been at the forefront for quite some time. It’s sort of been on temporary, but indefinite, vacation. That vacation will probably be as indefinite as my inability to aford to pick it back up again. Or until I can find some variation of the free equivalent. Whichever. It’s nice, though, to still be able to pick up on details of a song I’m listening to even if I couldn’t immediately run over to the piano, or the guitar, and play the whole damn thing back–not yet, anyway. There’s still hope for my return yet if that’s the case. Now, if I could just figure out where this singing ability people tell me I have has run off to.

I hadn’t planned to do a whole lot yesterday, with the exception of posting the very little info I managed to get my hands on regarding Ontario’s, shall we say, ripping off of an entire class of tax payer. But, as often tends to happen, plans came up and told me otherwise. So, instead I wrote those posts the day before, and took advantage of yesterday to go out for breakfast with mom, my aunt and uncle, and my cousin Stephen’s daughter–they were apparently babysitting her, unbeknownst to us when we dropped the invite. Which ended up working out for the better, since I had a sneaking suspicion breakfast with these particular people would translate to a morning spent doing very little.

I was right, and it did exactly that. Fortunately seeing the baby served to counter the otherwise boredom. She’s approaching 2, and I can probably count on one hand the times I’ve actually seen her–which, naturally, explained why she pretty much had absolutely no idea who I was. Then again, when you’re still measuring your life in months as opposed to years, it happens.

Breakfast took up a fair bit of the morning, followed by a run to Wall Mart where we once again ran into them. Which, as often happens, meant we spent 3/4 of the time there browsing/talking/generally being bored before we finally managed to pick up the two things we’d intended to go there for. The rest of the morning, and a goodly chunk of the afternoon, was taken up with a visit to my grandparents, who I also don’t get to see a whole lot of recently–and, again, we were followed there by my aunt and uncle which meant our visit ended up being longer than we’d planned. Fortunately, the cute factor made it semi-entertaining–which is more than I can say for a lot of visits there. I came back here, intent to grab a power nap and ended up grabbing a bout of unconsciousness instead.

All in all, a semi-productive, not quite lazy, but still non-boring enough to be somewhat noteworthy day. Plus, time spent with a kid not yet old enough to make you want to curse the existence of kids everywhere. Epic win by default. And now, I attempt to invent a Monday. God help me.

The budget for 2010 came out on thursday. And, expecting to see a slight improvement in areas that actually matter, I read things over as they came in–because, you know, I’m like that. Sure enough, slight was probably the best way to describe the improvements. Very slight, in some cases. One improvement in particular I was looking out for, since it affects me directly–at least until such time as I can find something I can call work, is Ontario’s disability support program (ODSP). They’ve already drawn my irritation for being among the cheapest of the out of work options currently available to anyone not currently managing just fine through the recession–second only to welfare in its cheapness. And now, they’re managing to become only very slightly less cheap.

In 2009, we saw an increase of approximately 2 percent in payments through ODSP. Which, for me, amounted to a grand total of $20 more on my check. Woopdy do–I can now aford to more easily pay for my hot water tank rental. Go me. This year, and not until fall of this year at that, we get an additional single percentage point increase. Which amounts to another $10. Yay–now I can aford my hot water tank rental, and maybe stuff for sandwitches!

In contrast, at the end of march minimum wage is going to go up roughly 75 cents more per hour–the seventh such increase since 2004. For those keeping score, that leads to a roughly $500 gap between what someone like me who can’t go find a gig flipping burgers on account of not being able to see the grill is making, versus what someone doing the said burger flipping job is making. And yet, they claim ODSP is designed with independence in mind for those who can’t do things like flip burgers or work in construction until something more to their liking comes along. I’d like to see where they get that from.

To their credit, everyone not currently a member of the liberal party is sort of trying to say things of a similar nature–1 percent, is that all? Not that I expect that to do a whole lot of good, so I wrote and sent an email to Ontario’s premier, the minister of community and social services–who oversees the ODSP situation, both opposition party leaders and Pembroke’s MPP–also a member of the conservative party. Those conversations, or what they think passes for conversations, are about to become open letters on this blog. As will every other correspondence that gets sent their way–and there’s going to be others.

I took the advice of another Ottawa area blogger and did the math, and could very easily live on a minimum wage style budget–believe it or not, quite luxuriously actually. I’m in Pembroke, which automaticly means subtract at least $100 from the price tag on just about anything related to actually living–rent, for starters. So my overly luxurious habbits aren’t exactly cause for concern, here. The overly generous habbits of our government, however, now there’s a cause for concern. Can we hit minimum wage before I hit the point of flat busted, please? That’d be appreciated.

In just less than 2 hours, we’ll be encouraged to turn our lights and probably anything else electrical off to conserve energy and save the environment. Because, you know, the whole global warming thing hasn’t already been kicked about a hundred times in the gonads. In this apartment, however, the only thing being conserved is a love for hockey. And it will be displayed in approximately 10 minutes in the form of a louder than usual television broadcast. Since the two are mutually exclusive, unless I’d like to miss approximately an hour of hockey, Earth hour has been cancelled for this year. Sorry, climateists. Can we reschedule for a non-sports day?

Some of you already know Jessica was up here for the week, having escaped back to Rochester this past Sunday. Mostly, we had her up here because we could, but a small part of it had to do with the fact it was the week of St. Patrick’s day. Naturally nothing overly spectacular was planned, but there was still fun to be had.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty much written off, on account of she just got here Saturday and well, needed all the rest she could get. Monday meant time well wasted with the family–we killed part of the afternoon over at mom’s, which has become pretty much routine for me anyway. We got to spend some quality time with my nephew at the same time, which is never a bad thing. I still need to post pictures up here–somebody needs to prevent me from forgetting. Or I need to stop being lazy, whichever. Tuesday was more of the same, except minus the nephew and plus a much needed trip to what passes for a grocery store in Petawawa.

Wednesday was when the party really got started. We got together for food and booze with mom, my aunt and uncle. A few beers and a couple vodka and cokes later, and we weren’t quite feeling it. So we came back to the apartment afterwards and picked up where we left off. There was music, the occasional slow dancing, we decided to pick right around that point to start fiddling with Gold Wave–because learning to edit audio is the thing to do when you’re buzzed. And, of course, there was interesting/amusing/entertaining conversation to be had. Although, it’s very likely it was only really interesting/amusing/entertaining to us, but oh well. We threw on Minority Report (2002), seeing as I hadn’t seen it and she liked the general description of the movie. And I’m considering seeing it again just because it’s on the computer now.

Thursday was our recovery day. We slept in fairly late, got up, and took it easy all day. Neither of us were hung over, but we weren’t about to pick up where we left off the night before either. We’d save that for Friday. And, naturally, we did just that. On Friday we cracked open what was left of the vodka, finished most of it, and I introduced her to 50 First Dates (2004). Because really, no Adam Sandler fan can make a claim of being just that without having seen that movie.

Saturday we took her into town so I could show her one of my favourite things about living where there isn’t really a whole lot of anything–the local pizza place, who’s quality I’ve not been able to match anywhere else. She took the opportunity to pick herself up a book as well–not knowing it was abridged, which still cost her damn near $40. I’ll be making an attempt to exchange that particular novel tonight hopefully. Then, because I kept saying I would, I took her to the local Mexican restaurant, the Santa Fe. As usual, I skipped dessert. Needless to say, the only thing we were considering doing when we got back was flaking out, relaxing, thinking about packing her up to leave on Sunday, then going to sleep. So we did.

Sunday was departure day. We got her packed and ready to go by 10, more or less. And we were gone by 11. Her bus didn’t pull away until 2:30, but we had no idea what to expect trafic-wise, and Ottawa has a nasty little habbit of always being worse than we plan for. Not an issue if I’m living in Ottawa. A huge issue if I’m just visiting temporarily. We did manage to get to the station just fine, though, and she got off with no problem whatsoever–at least until she got to Toronto, but that’s a whole other rant for another time and probably on her blog. I went to mom’s for supper, then back here to keep an ear to the ground and make sure she got to Rochester in one piece. She did, and after that point, it became pretty much back to business as usual for both of us. But, we did manage to learn something halfway interesting–again, probably only to us–in the process. The next time we do this, we really aught to not make it another 3 months from now. A week is just too little time to catch up.

Things have a nasty little habbit of happening here on 30 seconds’ notice. That kind of happened on Friday. Mom was in a fair bit of pain, and ended up going to Ottawa to get herself checked out Friday morning. There’s speculation that it may or may not be something similar to what she was dealing with in January. If it is, it’s nowhere near as severe so it can be left to either heal on its own or be delt with in a month or two if it’s not getting any better or worse. That left us free yesterday, and her particularly pain free, to spend some quality time with my nephew.

His parents were in Ottawa for their own reasons–I suspect it had a lot to do with a shopping trip and a stop off at the casino, so he belonged to us for the day. He’s almost 6 months old now, and you might argue he looks more like a 9-month-old or older. Already he’s fitting into clothes etc for up to 12 months in some cases. So yeah, spending time with him pretty much took care of the majority of the day. And, yes, was exhausting as hell–but I’ll take it.

It of course meant today was an easy day, with the only thing worth going out for being a trip to the Santa Fe Restaurant for supper–if you’re in the Pembroke area and do not stop in to this restaurant, you’re ripping yourself off. Just sayin’. They do everything from prime rib to Italian to yes, Mexican. Costs a little more than most places, but you’ll probably not be ordering dessert. Or breakfast the next morning. I’ve been home for 2 hours and I’m still stuffed.

There will be nephew pictures posted up here at some point. Most likely, later tonight. As for right now, there’s a hockey game on, caffinated things in the fridge, optionally alcoholic things to be put in said caffinated things, and a laptop that still needs to be tweeked just a little tiny bit. And I need to explode. Excuse me while I go do that.

Not for the first time, I ended up adopting a shift-worker’s routine. Specificly, a night-shift. By 8:00 this morning, I was contemplating sleep. By about 2:30, I was contemplating not being. And yet, since the end of November I was doing very well at, well, not doing that–largely because I had one thing or another to do during actual daylight hours. While I love this recent bit of downtime, it’s only served to prove me right. I was not meant for a 9-5 schedule. Unless it’s 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM. Hey, any tech companies in the Ottawa/Pembroke area need a geek for graveyard shift? I’m looking.

I’ve had a problem for the last couple years. Fortunately, it’s an easily solved one. Just about everything I’ve watched since about 2004 has been downloaded, or otherwise ripped from DVD’s borrowed or rented from elsewhere. This includes movies, TV shows, even the occasional hockey game–hey, I didn’t always have Leafs TV. The reasons are two-fold.

Movie companies have gotten incredibly sneaky with what they stick in that first track of current DVD’s. The one track you can’t actually skip/fast forward past–usually it just contains the FBI warning that says you can’t copy them. They’ve gotten good at cramming previews and other advertisements onto that first track. I’ve heard it said that some DVD’s actually have enough un-ignoreable advertising on there that you could theoretically run into the kitchen, whip up a quick snack, and come back in time to hit play. Download the movie instead, and snap. Problem solved.

TV shows have a similar problem. Only they actually make that problem slightly worse on TV. A typical hour-long show, minus advertisements, only actually lasts about 45 minutes. But they interrupt the show every 5-10 minutes for at least that long filled with commercials. It gets worse during live events, such as the olympics. I swear the advertising doubles at that point. And, as usual, they go to commercial during a semi-important portion of the said live event. Well, at least they didn’t cut off during most of the Canadian portions of the events.

My solution to both problems, except for the whole live events thing, is the almighty torrent. About 95% of everything I watch can easily be found, and downloaded, via that means–anything from CSI to Deep Space 9, and a few of the less popular shows that got me through highschool. Yeah, the MPAA may have a thing or three to say about it, but well, I have a thing or three to say about unwanted ads, too. I’d say we’re even. The only difference is, I won’t spend money to take down the MPAA. Yeah, I’m a pirate when it comes to TV shows. I also have a difficult time caring. You can blame the MPAA, and ads. I do. And I sleep just fine.

Yes, I love my family. And yes, I even love spending 2 weeks or so chasing after a couple of dogs–one of whom still technically belongs to me, after all–while family flees the country. But, I also love when the two weeks or so is over and I get to come back to my apartment and actually relax. I had no idea how tired I was until I walked through the door and realized I didn’t have to be anywhere for, like, ever if I was so inclined. And I just might be so inclined. I feel like I’ve kind of been all over the place since the beginning of the year, mostly because I sort of have. I do believe, if things end up working out that way–and I’m gonna try damn hard to convince them to work out that way, the remainder of this month and maybe half the next will be spent doing absolutely nothing beyond the obvious. The obvious being, flaking out, looking for work, trying to stay sane, watching the olympics, throwing back the occasional coke–hey, I need my caffeine, dammit–and trying to coax a laptop that it really really really desperately wants to get back to behaving for me. Really. More on that when I figure out exactly what’s wrong with it. In the meantime, I’m home. I’m supremely tired. And the laptop’s not doing anything productive for the rest of the night–mostly because I’m rebuilding things. In short, this means I’m going to go find me some caffeine. Or my bed. Whichever’s closer.

Since birth, I’ve had glaucoma, which has resulted in, among other things, my retinas being detached–a significant contributing factor to my not having sight. When I was younger, the resulting fluctuations in eye pressure glaucoma triggers made for some very insane headaches. It was discovered that those headaches were as a result of the pressure quite literally being out of controll. Several surgeries later, and they managed to fix that–I’ve gone years without having headaches to that extent or that frequently. The headaches I did get after that point were, well, no different from the types of headaches anyone else would get–and a lot more manageable.

Possibly because of my higher than normal pain tolerence, or because I’ve had and survived more powerful headaches, a typical headache usually doesn’t bother me. I can and usually do go through a normal headache day without breaking stride–anyone who wasn’t me likely wouldn’t know I was dealing with a headache. Where most folks would be reaching for the tylenol or something like it, I’d usually just turn down the TV.

Lately though, I’ve been dealing with more frequent headaches of the type I actually have to take notice of. These particular headaches, one of which I actually spent last night taking care of, usually take up residence right behind my left eye–the one that hasn’t suffered as extensive damage from my dealing with glaucoma. And, more often than not, they usually result in me having to actually take it easy for a few hours until they pass. In the event that doesn’t work, I have been known to pop a tylenol or two to get rid of the last of it.

Because I’ve had pressure issues before, and the symptoms are somewhat similar, I’m partially wondering if it may be the result of the glaucoma starting to get a little more out of controll again. It hasn’t happened since I was like 3 or 4, but that’s not to say it hasn’t started. Since my left eye has pretty much not been all too badly harmed by it, short of the detached retina and the need to replace a cornia, it might very well not be beyond logic to suggest that we might have a tiny case of reappearance in that eye.

Since I’ve been curious anyway about exactly how undamaged the optic nerve actually is in that eye, and–though I don’t know that I’d actually go through with it–if there was a way that, should the nerve still be relatively healthy, it could be put to some use in an attempt to at least give me partial sight, I’ve thought about getting myself in to see a specialist anyway. Never having had sight before, it’s not something I’m all over getting or my world will never be the same or anything, but I like knowing what my options are, should I someday decide hey, this is worth considering. In doing that, I may also bridge the headache topic with the specialist at that time, should I decide to actually go that route. Not to suggest they’re definitely related, but it would be an excuse to see one way or another. Until, if, I actually get around to doing something like that, however, it’ll be business as usual for me. Including whichever down time I need to deal with another just like it. It’s only a few hours–my day’s not completely written off as a result, so I don’t see it as a huge deal. Besides, it could always be worse–I hear migraines are hell.

Over the few months leading up to the Christmas holidays, the original cordless phone set I had for the apartment–one of those older two-handset jobs–was really starting to let go of, like, everything. I had one who’s battery might last 30 minutes, and another who’s battery might last 30 seconds. My parents, who bought me those phones a few years ago, had the exact same ones–and were having at around the same time the exact same problem. I can’t even remember what model they were, but turns out they were pretty well crap. They were promptly replaced in both households by phones made by Panasonic instead. We got our hands on one of those digital answering systems–the phones, 3 of them for my place this time, come with their own built-in answering machine so you’re not paying someone for voicemail. I didn’t exactly plan to use that, but it’s nice to know they have that option.

We got them set up, and were introduced to a rather neat little surprise. It seems, though we didn’t know this at the time, the handsets in use at my parents’ place come with the option to have call Id information read out to you via text to speech built into the individual handsets. Now, granted, you can’t use the same method for being able to go back through your history of missed calls, but this is perhaps the second model of phone I’ve actually seen it implemented on–the first, a corded model several years ago, quite frankly made me want to pitch it out the window. And the thing wasn’t even mine. Naturally mine didn’t come with that option, but it was still nice to see some of them did.

I have no idea if Panasonic is actually starting to consciously make their equipment just that much more accessible, or if it’s another example of a measure of convenience just so happening to double as something you can use without requiring the ability to actually see your phone. The naive part of me would like to think the former, but here in the real world, it’s more than likely the latter. Still, it’s a nice touch for a phone system. I wouldn’t mind seeing this end up becoming a trend for other manufacturers. For the curious, here’s one of the models with talking call ID on Amazon. I wonder if it’s too late for an exchange…