Something has gone tragically wrong. No, seriously. I’m wrapping up the month of May, which has been insane with a side order of OMG, and it’s only the 3rd of June. Have I finally knocked off this whole slacking thing, or is there perhaps some connection between this and the fact I’m writing this post while sitting on the coutch in my epically awesome living room–which, for the first time in the history of my having my own place, is actually a living room and not half an office? Further investigation may be required. The month of May has, though, been insane busy in the insane. Complete with what might almost be called an OMG right now emergency move for which, after things officially fell into place and didn’t have a gigantic questionmark wrapped around them, I had a grand total of a week to actually arange things. Still, nobody died in the aranging of this move–and we might actually be able, for the first time ever, to save a nickle or dime here and there on ODSP. Bloody miraculous and warranting vodka. And hey look, I have vodka. I also apparently managed to find plenty of content, both mock-worthy and not so much, to post about–before and after the move. Readers found some of it quite interesting, but appeared to still be interested in posts from earlier, most noteably during my small war with ODSP. Here’s a look at what most interested folks in the month of May, as always, brought to you by Google Analytics.

• We were trying to sort things out with the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) in the month of April, so we could actually manage to aford to stay where we were, nevermind where we are now. ODSP was having none of it, though, and–my case worker, at least–tried to be as vague as possible about it. That resulted in more than a little frustration, and an eventual police threat of sorts. It was never acted on, but it did prove just how twitchy ODSP gets when they’re called out for being a little crooked. I’m still waiting to see how that develops, but am not holding my breath.
• Every time I’m anywhere near Ottawa, I put together a gigantic list of things to do. And I usually end up getting most of them crossed off while I’m here. I gave it a good start, having not even been here too weeks yet. Not bad for a return to familiar territory.
• I nearly had a shopping list of hardware issues on my primary machine. Nearly. Except for that part where I didn’t. Turned out instead it was a fairly new virus. It took me the weekend to clean up from, and research showed me it didn’t have time to be fully adapted to, but I’ll be the first to tell you, it very nearly provoked a phone call to Dell–for the second time last month.
• On the local blog front, I was able to implement a few nifty little changes to the blog in my few minutes free post-move, and they seem to be fairly well received so far. Those changes include updates by email. Go ahead and subscribe–it’s been rather widely tested. Coming soon, updates to particular categories by email. Yay?
• And finally, it’s not always good news out of the NHL camp. Just ask the owner of a Montreal shawarma joint who owes $90000 in perceived damages after creating an ad for his restaurant that supports the Montreal Canadians. I always said supporting those bastards from Montreal aughta be illegal, but I wasn’t thinking copyright/trademark illegal. Way to go, NHL. I’m still wicked impressed. Except no not really.

That’s May in a nutshell. Now, let’s see if I can remember more of this Rogers TV lineup. On the list of mockery? Protesting the throne speech. That’s 2011 ambission at work. And that’s probably mock-worthy.\

At long last, it’s that time of the month again–wherein I go flipping back through last month’s notes and take measure of exactly what it is folks found interesting to read while life was going on on this side of the blog. We call it April’s most popular posts, as chosen by you, and only two or three days before I should be starting to think about May’s. Hey, it’s an improvement. Still, I blame in no particular order: moving, taxes, moving, family outings, moving, the beginning formation of wedding plans (future entry probably), moving, cleaning up after the move, moving, and oh yeah, moving. And while I was building up to this move, and finding slightly more things to mock than I expected, you folks were busy getting interested. Here’s what you liked, brought to you as always courtesy Google Analytics.

• I’ve never been a very big fan of the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). Yes, in spite of the fact at the moment, they’re the only thing keeping me from living off my family’s already stretched budget. There’s an entire category on the site set aside for my periodic rounds with ODSP. Including when they jump off the deep end and threaten to call the police over one such blog post–they never did, for the record.
• Keeping on the ODSP theme, you asked what prompted the threat of having the police called on me courtesy ODSP. An admittedly irritatedly written post, prompted by the fact the information ODSP was handing me was pretty well clear as mud. I got a bit of an education during that conversation. And gave one back a while later.
• If you subscribe to geek theory, and it looks like a lot of you do, you know about April 21, 2011. If you read my blog, and you obviously do, you know about April 21, 2011. Here’s why, in case you’ve forgotten or ignored it. Yep, Skynet is now self-aware. We’re screwed.
• April was apparently dominated by ODSP related searches. Actually, it was dominated by ODSP searches before ODSP became an issue–only this time, the searches were actually being done by ODSP. I wasn’t the least bit surprised, particularly these days, when employers have been known to request your Facebook, Twitter, blog etc passwords. So long, privacy. You were never really here, but we pretended well.
• And just to fill you in on what started the apparent month of ODSP dominance in April, we skip back to February, when I got my first taste of ODSP math. Two months later and that post still gets pointed to. One of us isn’t doing something right like.

That’s April in a nutshell. Taken up mostly by government issues that at the end of the day, I only just shrugged out from under. Now, with only a couple days left in May, let’s see what you folks are finding interesting this month. You’ll find out later this week, unless life slaps me in the face–then later this month. Now, then. About the last remaining threads of that damned infection.

What do you do when you have a website with a google page rank of 2, and an absolute wealth of complete mockery building up? Why, sit on it and don’t do a whole lot of anything with it, of course. Well, if you’re me, anyway. If you’re anyone else it probably equates to about a million posts per day–but then, anyone else wouldn’t have just gone through February either. The month was largely spent recovering and dealing with personal admin stuff. And yet, I still found things to post about. And mock. And folks still found things to read. Here’s what folks were interested in last month, as always, courtesy Google Analytics.

• Earth hour was kind of a mock waiting to happen. I’ve mocked it twice on this here blog, including this past hour–when I pointed out I wasn’t going to be the only one being oblivious to the hour. Somewhere in a cold, dark corner of Canada, some PC greenie just fainted.
• We have to go all the way back to the dust-covered archives for this one. A completely random quiz I did way back in 2006 somehow made the list last month. I don’t even wanna know what the hell kinda keywords brought this puppy back from the dead. Hi, nearly 5 years ago.
• From the mocked and mocked again department, not everyone takes rejection all that kindly. Some, like the 92-year-old mentioned in this entry, get downright violent about it. I wonder how she’s fairing with the whole jail thing.
• I actually managed to go a whole month or thereabouts without posting anything here. I dunno how, and I really can’t remember exactly all of why. But I did. My first post in about a month, complete with typoes, exists over here. What I didn’t tell you in that post was it was being done from the laptop–kinda like this one is now. Hence, the typoes while I was getting used to the keyboard on this thing. I still haven’t quite gotten that down yet–I’ve just been slightly better at the whole applying of the delete key thing.
• I’ve been somewhat unfairly riding Glen Beck the last couple entries. And I’m not done yet if the news I’ve been seeing is true. But, hey, his whackyness has landed him on the popular posts list for two months in a row–you can’t blame me for that, right? Once again, his being convince there’s a gigantic government conspiracy involving Google has managed to interest, and probably amuse, folks who’ve dropped by. Okay, I’ll admit it–I’m still mildly entertained by that idea as well. That’s why I mocked it.

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And there you have it. March, or most of it, in a nutshell. And an old post to spice things up. Just when I thought my having moved things around would break me in the search engines. Clearly, I was mistaken. Now, back to finding random bits of trivial to post. Happy lerking, or something like it.

It took forever and a half, but I’m finally doing the February recap I should have done in March. In April! Go me. February was, er, um, insanely insane. Busy didn’t even describe it. From getting sickly sick, to helping Jessica get moved in, to partaking in a concerting experience. And yet, I still had time to find things to post about–and you guys, somehow, had time to read them. Here’s what you found interesting in the month of February, as always, courtesy Google Analytics.

• The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission decided on a whim back in January that there was no such thing as unlimitted internet. I tore into them for that, and they eventually somehow managed to back the hell down. You guys were interested enough to put this at the top of the list in February.
• I’ve commented before on those whacked out loopies over in Iran and their idea of things like, you know, social progress. Or human rights. They decided to outlaw Valentines day. I don’t subscribe to the extreme ideas of the day, but I still mocked them quite handily for it. So did a few others, actually.
• I’m nowhere near an Apple fan. Nowhere near. In fact, I’ve called them out more times than I care to admit–yes, even though I kind of had my arm twisted to pick up a freaking iPhone. One of the things I’ve called them out for? Their obsession with being the end point for anything you have to actually pay for. Yeah, this includes music, apps, some of the content you yoink via those apps, whatever. Apple’s a phone manufacturer, not a bloody shopping center. Lord knows it’s trying to be both, though.
• From the department of whacked out high-profile loopies, you guys had a pretty amusingly high interest in Glen Beck’s latest oopsy. You know, the one in which he brands Google, of all things, as being in bed with the government. Yeah, I kind of snarked at that maybe just a little. And maybe suggested he should retire. But, hey, when you get that senile…
• I spent the month of February, and part of the month of March, hanging out in rochester–see afore mentioned helping Jessica move and winding up sick to top it off. I threw something together and called it an update. Then the insanity kicked me squarely in the teeth and updates like that became a myth. Well, there’s your myth.

There’s February in the tiniest of nutshells. Hopefully I’ll remember to do March’s recap before April goes and fucks off somewhere. Meantime, I’ll keep posting–you just keep reading.

Semi-related: for the first time since I started broadcasting my posts on Twitter, you folks coming from Google have actually managed to beat them out. And they say there’s no such thing as good search influence.

Last month was by no means a busy posting month on account of I was way, way, way too busy ducking several dozen different variety of curve ball. Still, I posted quite a bit, and yall found other stuff to read when I wasn’t. Here’s what you found interesting in January, as always, courtesy Google Analytics.

• Canada Post has recently picked up this nasty habbit of being horribly broken in the accessibility department. It got pointed out to them, twice. They’re still inaccessible–and now, trying for incompitent. Another round may be in our future.
• Canada’s telecommunications regulator, the CRTC, very nearly broke the internet. They were called out by several thousand in various ways, shapes and forms. I was one of them. I still have yet to deconstruct what happened after the backlash–look for that sometime next week.
• I don’t subscribe to a lot of the idea behind Valentines day, usually, But even I wouldn’t push to make it illegal. They did in Iran. It’s number 4 on the list for January, but it’ll probably be higher in February. You can always count on a third-world whackjob to generate traffick.
• My former ISP, TekSavvy, has been on a fast track down hill in recent months. Screwing up activations, delivering misleading information, advertising staffers with more influence than they actually have–they’ve done it all. Including putting customers over a barel in emergency situations–and not much caring that they’ve just put customers over a barel in an emergency situation.
• Ottawa’s had a 211 call and complain line for like ever. And if there’s even the slightest problem warranting a gentle tap on the shoulder, the locals get all uppity and start bitching at that number. OC Transpo running 5 minutes late? Call and bitch at 211. Don’t like your new higher property taxes (I’ll rant about *that* later.)? Call and bitch at 211. And now, the Pembroke/Refrew area has its very own. Lovely. Give people with no problem bitching a call and bitch number, they’ll call and bitch. A lot. About everything. Good going, Renfrew County.<

Not bad for a niggling little blog who maybe gets 20 readers a day at its very consistent best. February will probably be just as interesting–and I haven’t even been through all my mockery yet. Watch this space–um, next week or so.

I started this latest incarnation of the blog in late 2009 and had absolutely no idea where it’d end up going. Over a year later, I still have absolutely no idea where it’s going. But I have a thousand or so posts to show for it. Here’s what caught people’s attention last year. Now I get to start reminding myself every 5 minutes to write 2011. I hate you, calendar.

• Last year was a continuation of the year of the geek, started at about the midway point of 2009. And in november, it culminated in the instalation of an OS inside an OS. I had some issues, but nothing a complete reinstall couldn’t fix. Perhaps this year I’ll get around to breaking it.
• I have the pleasure of having spent the last year on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). It took me not very long to figure out we’re not a whole lot less screwed over by this system than we were in 2006 when I left in favour of work. I wrote a few open letters to various political figures re: the current situation. I’ll probably write a few dozen more. You can find all of them I’ve sent so far over here.
• In 2008, Dell closed its Ottawa office, putting an end to several hundred jobs–including mine. The city of Ottawa didn’t do a whole lot to help us out back then. Neither did the provincial or federal governments. Flash forward to March of last year, when an outsourcing call center, convergys, did the same to its Ottawa office. This time, those employees got help. Nearly 9 months later and this post still made it into the top 5 reads. It’s a top 3 read on the year.
• H1N1 was declared dead in August of last year. And not 48 hours later, they’d picked a new one to replace it. And hey look, the H1N1 vaccination may not apply. Be scared, now. Except not really.
• American Airlines needs an education in the worst way. In October of this year, a blind traveller had to surrender his cane for fear it could be used as a weapon. Also in October, I asked what kind of crack they were smoking. To this day, people are still asking.
• Back to the ODSP theme for a second. In September, there was a brief episode of discussion on the blog after ODSP was ordered to make payments to two alcoholic recipients. The human rights tribunal had escentially declared an unwillingness to deal with alcoholism a disability. ODSP had been fighting it for years and, in my opinion, rightly so. Not everyone agreed with me. Fortunately, that’s why I do this.
• Clive Doucet doesn’t much like me. And with good reason. In 2009, I exchanged a brief series of emails with him over the OC Transpo strike that virtually shut down parts of the city. Since then, he’d been mailing me promotional material re: his position as city counsellor, and later, his platform as mayoral candidate. I asked him to stop. Then, I told him to stop. Then, I ranted. Fortunately he’s no longer a city counsellor. Bright side: he stopped.
• Everyone who knows me knows I haven’t legally purchased a CD in years. Nearly everyone I know can probably say the same. In May of 2010, with the help of another blog I frequently read, I explained why. I still haven’t heard very many, if any, opposing points of view. And even less of those that haven’t already been disproven 6 ways from Sunday.
• I’ve been using Linode for some of my interests for a few years. Now, it hosts a small portion of the professional endeavor I’m currently involved in setting up–more on that when we’ve got the groundwork laid out. A very nifty promotion in June nearly prompted me to move everything. Occasionally, I still consider doing so–though now, I may just move it to the afore mentioned professional endeavor. No, you’re not getting details yet.
• Technology hasn’t been very nice this year. Neither have the various cellular phone cariers. Wind Mobile, champions of the “we’re different” line of thinking, was a little extra naughty in October. I called their CEO out for it. Surprise, I still haven’t heard back. And neither has the customer who commented on that post. Different? Perhaps not.
• June was a busy, and surprising, month in the James household. Linode promotions, birthday cellebrations, time spent with family, and of course, getting engaged. I’m still not used to that last one. It’s a nice feeling, though.
• And lastly, my current web host is usually uber awesome. Largely part of why I have yet to pack up and move everything–see above. Sometimes, though, they’re awesome in ways not immediately noticeable to potential new customers. Like when they mistakenly send you an email offering customers who haven’t gone VPS a discount to do so after you’ve already done so. And then, because they can, giving you the discount. You made my year, DreamHost. Now please try not to break things–that’s my job.

That’s 2010 according to the blog. Sadly, or perhaps not so, the year’s been fairly uneventful otherwise–kind of how I like it. There are one or two things that didn’t get posted, or make the list. You’ll see those tonight. Or tomorrow. Or eventually. So how was your 2010?

Mayhem was apparently the name of the game this month. Non-stop fun–from roommates to financial creativity to parties to significant visits. And oh yeah I think there might have been a holiday or two in there somewhere. Holiday notwithstanding, though, you folks still found something interesting over here. I’m sorry. Still, here’s what brought you to me in december, as always, brought to you by Google Analytics.

• Sometimes, an iPhone is just an iPhone. Yes, even when it’s in the hands of a blind University of Ottawa student. And sometimes, people forget that. That’s why we have posts like this. No need to thank me–that’s why I’m here.
• Del.icio.us was scheduled to be shut down earlier this month. Then it wasn’t. Then it was scheduled to be sold. And now, who knows. Until recently, I didn’t know anyone who actually used the service. I’m still holding out for one of those alternatives.
• Back in 2008, I told Sympatico, my then ISP, to kindly jump off a bridge. I made the switch to TekSavvy based on several recommendations and my own research. Around the beginning of December, I cancelled them. And by the sounds of it, I’m probably not the only one–probably for similar reasons.
• You could almost call this a sequel to my TekSavvy experiences. In fact, when I wrote that particular entry, I very nearly did. Now, I know I’m not the only one who cancelled for similar reasons. Or at least thought about it. And this guy was new. I still don’t have a whole lot of faith in you over here, TekSavvy. Get with it.
• Windows Mobile and I don’t like each other. Okay, more adequately put, Windows Mobile makes a regular habbit of summarily flipping me off and I’d like nothing better than to push Windows Mobile off a cliff. It probably didn’t help that it was on one of freedom Scientific‘s Pacmates, but this month, I’m going to stick with blaming Windows Mobile. I mini-ranted about it this past week, after it escentially made checking Jessica‘s email a much more complicated afair than it really had to be. I still feel like ranting about it–perhaps it’ll hold itself over until February.

That’s the blog in December, in a nutshell. Yeah, a little more boring than usual–which in and of itself took some effort. Sorry. Stick around, though–it may or may not improve.

Randomly related: Google used to be my largest source of trafic. Now, it’s Twitter. Thanks, guys. I don’t know what you see over here, but thanks. Now just don’t go running in the other direction and we’ll both be happy.

Just when you think things are about to calm down, you get tossed into a whole other realm of insanity. Things with the mother calmed down–another entry incoming, and then I go off and land a roommate. Nifty, or something. And while I was doing that, you folks were cruising the site–poor you. Here’s what you found interesting in November, only 2 weeks before I get to do the same thing for December!

• Any self-respecting geek has done some playing with running an OS inside an OS. I did it. Then, because I could, I did it twice. With minimal implosions, even.
• I get political. Sometimes, very. My friends are all too aware of that. One of them sent me this, which was promptly snarked at. Repeatedly. And often. I still snicker.
• I try to find reasons not to fly internationally as it is, mostly because the cost is enough to send my poor bank account into a tailspin. I can now add the Transport Security administration to the list of reasons not to bother with it. Traumatizing little children since 2010. Yeah, I’d still like to know what goes through some of these people’s heads.
• Back in March, I wrote several open letters to Ontario’s Premier, leaders of the opposition, my local MPP and the minister of community and social services re: the situation with the Ontario disability Support Program (ODSP) and its rather impressive lack of any actual support. Occasionally, one of them will show up on the monthly list. Last month, readers took interest in this one. Anyone surprised? Not me.
• I had a small problem with former Ottawa city councillor Clive Doucet randomly throwing email at me as a result of what amounts to a thirty-second exchange during the OC Transpo strike of 2008-2009. The problem warranted yet another mention on the blog last month. And apparently, I’m not the only one who’s felt like mentioning it–that entry’s still getting attention.

That’s November in a nutshell. December… may or may not be fun and amusing and otherwise wicked nifty cool. Enjoy yourselves folks, and I’ll throw another one of these up in the new year.

Finally, only halfway through this month, I have a chance to take a quick glance at what folks found of interest last month. It wasn’t as busy for me as this month is, but that didn’t mean a lack of the mockworthy. It did, however, mean I actually got this thing done on time. Something interesting of note: through the month of October, it looked like you folks following the blog on Twitter might become my most active readers. Sadly, you lost to Google. So, here’s what you and the googlers read about last month, as always, courtesy Google Analytics.

• Airlines are paranoid creatures. Justifiably, some might argue, after 9/11 and then the failed bombing attempt on Christmas day. Some, like the young man who had to surrender his cane, might question that viewpoint. I, personally, wouldn’t blame him.
• The next version of MacOS is said to be coming with its own app store. I suggested, much to the irritation of one reader, that this will more than likely open the door to Apple doing with it what it’s done with the iPhone. I still haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary yet. Anyone?
• Cell phone companies piss me off. That’s probably the world’s–or, at least, my–worst kept secret. Wind Mobile is no exception–and I’m not even a customer. After encountering one such off-pissing aspect of Wind’s service, and in looking it up, running smack into a much more irritating aspect of said service, I decided to talk to them about it. They still haven’t responded. Hello, Ken Campbell? Anyone home?
• When I was in school, unless you were really justifiably sick, you were probably using headaches/tiredness/lack of concentration as an excuse to stay home from school. That was your fault. Today, it’s wi-fi’s fault. Not sure in what universe, but any excuse to sleep in. Now where was wi-fi to blame 20 years ago?
• October has always meant something very special to me. At least, always in the sense of ever since I was old enough to develop an appreciation for it. October meant hockey, which meant many nights sitting in front of the TV, optionally with a large pizza and a coke, with or without alcohol, and cursing my hockey team. I wrote about it about an hour before the first game of this year’s season. And if I could, I’d go back to that day and slap myself for writing it.

That was October, in a nutshell. Now to go find my way through the hellish chaos that is not October. Happy reading, folks. And happy giving of thanks to those of you cellebrating it this month. Those of you not, consider it an excuse to crack open the booze. I am.

I have no problem admitting I’m a bit of a stat nut. Not so much to the point where I do this explicitly to see how many thousands of people come pouring in when I post something, but since I’m doing it, and since it’s publicly available, I might as well get curious re: who takes an interest, from where, in what exactly and for how long. I have equally no problem admitting I’m kind of a sucker for RSS feeds. In fact, I already have. So when you take both of these, slap them together, you get a project I have to play with.

So, enter yet another stats related experiment. I test drove, and eventually ended up, sticking with Statcounter for realtime statistics gathering–I even hooked Jessica up with it not long ago. For the broader perspective, like watching collectively what’s gaining or losing strength, I stick with Google Analytics. But I’ve been curious about ways to minimise the number of places I have to look to get a decent idea of how active things are getting. Since I already live in my RSS reader of choice most of the day anyway–some of that which is mock worthy comes from there, after all, and since I’m not the type to refresh the stats page every 10 minutes just in case someone happens to drop by, when I came across something that would let me slap certain collective stats into an RSS feed, I figured why the hell not. So I signed up yesterday afternoon with Clicky, a realtime statistics engine a la Statcounter that gives me that kind of access.

Like statcounter, and to an extent Google Analytics, it shows you where people are coming from, where they’re going on your site, and what if anything they searched for to get there. Unlike Statcounter, but more like Google Analytics, it lets you drill down to get more detailed access to the specifics of a particular user, including–I’m gathering based on what I’ve seen so far–what they’ve accessed on your site in previous visits, since Clicky started tracking. Unlike either of the two, it supposedly still manages to keep track of certain things in the event folks show up with javascript disabled. And, also unlike either of the two, it gives you the option of not so much as lookiing at their website should you decide not to–by letting you keep track of, in my opinion anyway, the important things in individualised RSS feeds. I’ve only been playing with it for less than 24 hours, but so far, I’m liking what I’m seeing. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it’ll replace either or both of my stats packages I currently use, but at the very least, it’s a nifty little distraction. We’ll find out soon enough if I’m still distracted by it. In the meantime, time to go find something mock worthy.

It’s been a somewhat up and down month, both in what I’ve been up to and in reader activity. In the last few weeks, though, reader activity’s at least been moving in a more upwardly direction–I guess me not being as busy means there’s more up here for folks to be distracted by. Who knew? Here’s what you’ve found interesting since the start of September, as always, courtesy Google Analytics.

• I’ve been an unwilling recipient of the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) since around this time last year. even though I’d much rather be working and off ODSP, I still take an active interest in what goes on with it–particularly to the extent that, at least for the moment, it also affects me. So when two people with alcoholism were ruled by Ontario’s human rights commission to be entitled to ODSP, I was more than a little irritated. I unloaded on the human rights commission when I read of it, and that generated a fairly intense discussion–the most activity the blog’s seen since it was set up.
• Not nearly as intense a discussion, Ottawa mayoral candidate Clive Doucet gets a spot in the popular posts list for his advertisements based on exchanging only one or two emails with the man–nearly two years ago. He got his very own rant for that. Fortunately, his unsubscribe option exists–and works–this time.
• H1N1 is dead, and just in time. a day or two after its death, the World Health Organization (WHO) decided it wanted us to know about a brand spanking new superbug. Vaccination manufacturers everywhere just had a collective orgasm.
• My quest to put my geekery on paper has been placed on a temporary hold, after my college dreams crashed and burned. Bright side: it freed me up to pursue two job opportunities, one of which is still running–the other, at least for the moment, ran off a cliff.
• And, from the archives, in 2008, Carly Fleischmann made headlines in a larger than life way. She’s an autistic highschool kid who can’t communicate verbally, but can do so more than well enough on a computer to make up for it. I wrote two entries about her–here’s the second of the two–when I read about her initially. More than two years later now, and she’s in highschool, on Facebook, and on Twitter–follow her here. That’s the kind of progress I can get behind.

That’s the kind of month it’s been. Now let’s shove this thing into October, possible future employment, and hockey. Lots, and lots, of hockey.

Just because I spent a month out of the country doesn’t mean I didn’t find things to blog about. Or mock. Or snicker at. Yeah, it’s been a hell of a busy month. And, once I got back through the door of this apartment, my first thought was “holy shit busy”. It’s apparently been busy for the readers, too. Here’s what folks found interesting in the month of August, courtesy Google Analytics.

• For some, the time for things to break is on a Thursday. For others, it’s the entire month of August. Apparently, I fall into the latter category. Near breakage, outright breakage, fake breakage, and oh yeah, beyond my control breakage–if it could break, it probably did. Or tried to. And I summarized most of it.
• Just when you thought it was safe to take off your mask. Not even 36 hours after H1N1 was declared dead, they up and invented a new superbug. And hey, it’s already going global. Yeah, you guys can probably guess my opinion on it. But in case you can’t, there it is in link form.
• As Canadian as fiddle fest on a labour day weekend–which, by the way, is coming up next weekend if you’re in the area, and nearly as unknown to folks south of the border, Great Big Sea. I wrote about them here, and included a sample video. Really, they’re awesome and must be checked out. Like, now-ish.
• Twitter is awesome. No, seriously. If you don’t have an account, get one. Also, now-ish. But that having been said, not every thought I have makes it that far. Usually because it loses its context by the time I get around to glancing at Twitter–like tonight, for example. I posted a sampling of them here. I’ll probably do a similar post again later. Or maybe just update that one. I dunno.
• And making a comeback on the popular posts list, what the hell, Ottawa? I still can’t wrap my head around why they forked over more assistance for convergys than they did when the Dell office went splat. And hey, five months later, apparently I’m not the only one. And I still don’t have any more of a clue.

Holy freaking busy. And I do mean busy. For a small sampling of what I mean, have a look through previous posts. Or, wait until the popular posts for this month gets tossed up. In the meantime, here’s what caught people’s attention in July–a surprisingly way less busy-ish month, considering.

• Right on queue, when I was thinking about possibly finding some way to bypass the US only limitations and at least try out Netflix, they go out and bring it to Canada. Well, sort of. About goddamn time we get something folks on this side of the border already have.
• All the busy in the world doesn’t quite make up for the first week of July, part of it was spent with Jessica. It was during that week that she became my fiance. And she’s not managed to run screaming yet.
• I effectively and officially started the ball rolling on the whole getting me into college thing around the middle of July. Naturally at that point I had no idea that ball was going to try and roll right over top of me, but it got started then. And even that took some twisting of arms.
• I have a nasty habbit of screwing up my sleep schedule completely beyond recognission. Sometimes, it ends up resulting in 4:00 wake-up calls. And most of the time it ends up not actually staying stable, even in its screwed up state, for very long. Gotta love the flexible routine–except when it’s way, way too flexible.
• And in slightly mock-worthy news, Sarah Palin has a thing for occasionally inventing new words, then claiming it’s because everyone else is doing it. I harass her for it as often as I can, much to the dismay of many I’m sure. But, hey, considering the couple months I’ve been having, even minor amusement/mockery can be good.

Okay, so not as entertaining as some of the other lists. What do you want for the middle of summer? Now, back I go to the land of oh my god busy.

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.

Not even officially summer yet and I’ve had to keep the remote to my AC close by. This isn’t pretty. If you’re sweating it out like I am, here’s a nifty little way to keep semi-cool. crack open something cold–I recommend a bottle of rum–and have a look at what folks were interested in last month, as always, courtesy Google Analytics.

• The “piracy is evil” camp got a bunch of renewed memberships this month, in the form of our new copyright legislation and its supporters. I wonder what for, and point out the obvious. As long as the pirates offer a better service than the legal alternatives, piracy wins. And no, I don’t lose sleep at night.
• Administrative bodies absolutely hate making things headache free. Noteably when it comes to certain highschool transcripts. I guess 1995 was a good year–folks are surprisingly still stuck there, at least technologically.
• Earlier in the month, Ottawa and area received a gift from the phone companies in the form of a new area code. It only took them 4+ years since they enacted ten-digit dialing.
• Humidity? Here? Nah. Can’t be. If you’re me, you’re probably about ready to call it quits on this whole overly sticky thing already–and it’s only June. And if you’re Xup, you’re probably crazy enough to actually like it. I’m sorry.
• Speaking of Xup, a debate over on her blog a bit ago left me with an essay in my head, and I’m way too nice to stick the whole thing on her blog in a comment. It got dropped here instead. I keep forgetting to do my follow-up post to this one. Maybe today at some point. Or tomorrow. See? Told you lazy is bad for me.

It’s been one piece of news after another the last few weeks, some of which weren’t spent in the relative safety of my non-secure apartment building. Still, I found the time in the last few days of April to get one last blog in. So, here, have a late compilation of last month’s interesting reads, according to people who read this thing and Google Analytics.

• Back in March, I challenged the government of Ontario to actually talk to us common folk about what they’re planning on doing for people on welfare and/or ODSP. The premier sent me back a form letter, and I pasted both here.
• Convergys closed its doors in the middle of last month. They’re being given a leg up by city and provincial governments, at last check. Possibly even the federal government. My opinion on that is here, but summarized, where was this 2 years ago?
• Speaking of the provincial government, let’s continue the theme. An attempt to throw sex education at grade 3 students didn’t go over very well in the province–hence Dalton McGuinty’s rather quick retreat within a day or two of it making headlines. It didn’t go over well here, either.
• And, because themes are meant to eventually be broken, that’s exactly what we’re going to do here. Speaking of broken, Canada is dangerously close to breaking braille. At least if the rumours are true–I still haven’t heard one way or the other. Anyone feel like offering something factual? Google’s got nothin’.
• Again with the brokenness of things, this time from a tech perspective. I’m still a user of LiveJournal. In the sense that this blog cross-posts to LJ, and I’ve hacked something together to read my friends list via RSS feeds. It wasn’t easy. And, it’s rather quite well documented–including what I eventually decided to do to kind of make it work. So far, it seems to be working.

Hey now. More productive than I thought. Who knew? There is promise in this.

Also: There will undoubtedly be a celebratory hockey post in the next few days, barring a disaster. Montreal isn’t doing so hot. Thank, freaking, God. Yes, unrelated. You’ll live.

Update: Clearly, I fail at HTML and spelling. Tonight, I cannot brain. Fixed. Now, stay pretty, goddammit.

As anyone who’s been following my ramblings for a while knows, I’m a recent and still in progress convert away from LiveJournal. To this day, I still blog on that site as Arinoch, though now it’s more a duplication of the content you’d usually find on this site. One of my big reasons for skipping out on LJ is the lack of control over what you actually have the ability to do with your blog. But, a slightly more important one–to me, anyway–was the lack of an ability to actually see who bothers to read the thing. Until recently, they had absolutely no means of statistical tracking. Which, admittedly, isn’t the primary reason I do this, but sometimes it comes in handy. They tried to correct that minor malfunction with their own, internal analysiss tool, called “My stats”. It was barely useful for more than to see how many of your “friends” continued to check up on you every 20 minutes. So now, they’ve taken the next logical step and gone with the use of Google Analytics instead, giving you the option to get as detailed or not a look at your blog as you please.

I’ve been using the same service on this site, after trying several things to see who would provide me with the more interesting stats–and, after consulting with one well-known expert in the field, Toronto Mike. And all I can say is it’s about goddamn time. If I hadn’t already switched from LJ, I’d probably reconsider doing so now. Particularly if they opened up what you could actually do with the blog you’re optionally paying them to host. Offering this, plus options for advertising on your own–hey, why should LJ-sponsored ads be the only option available–is a good start, though. Now keep it going. I may be tempted to not hang up completely.

What I’d like to see next? StatCounter support, for the realtime stats analytics doesn’t touch. Dunno why they don’t touch it, but oh well. Now, allow me to go play with this for a little.

Surprisingly, it’s been a fairly inactive/unproductive month. Very few jobs to look for, in spite of the whole theory that says the economy’s bouncing back, but plenty of time to spend with the girlfriend, the nephew, my now eliminated hockey team, and everyone else. I’ve even gotten a tiny bit political in my recently discovered free time. Here’s what folks found interesting in the month past, according to Google Analytics.

• Convergys closes this month. Earlier in March, the city offered to help catch the employees that company threw under the bus. I wrote about it, and wondered why we didn’t see that kind of help when Dell went sideways. I still wonder.
• The Ontario Disability Support Program, or ODSP, is right now the difference between my unemployed and apparently unhireable ass being in this apartment and on the street. In its current state, it’s not much of a difference. I called out the premier over it, to which I got a rather indifferent shrug of an email. I promptly called him again. Will it warrant another shrug?
• My second letter was only sent a few days ago, in response to this small handout being given to us by the ministry of social services. combine that with the few taxes, user fees etc we’re getting thrown at us of late, and you can probably see the direction the math’s heading.
• Folks are still taking an interest in the results of February’s olympics. Specificly, in Canada’s ice dancing gold metal. Yeah, I didn’t know ice dancing was an olympic sport either. Or that we had anyone competing in it. Shows what I know.
• I’ve always believed the world’s got way too much time on its hands. Or at least, too many timezones. One seems like a good number, at least to me. I made my case for it, but no one’s listening yet. Well, except Russia, who’s already killed two of its zones.

Yeah, this blog’s about as random as it gets. From politics, to sports, to random gripes about timezones. But, hey, someone keeps reading it besides me. Now, maybe I can get more than a shrug out of Dalton McGuinty this month. Anyone taking bets?

Slightly more activity than is usual snuck up on the blog in February. Not that there was a whole lot of activity here to begin with, so there’s your comparison. Here’s what folks have found interesting when they came my way.

• February was olympic month this year, and the resulting metal haull was kicked off in style by miss Jennifer Heil. There’s confirmation now we won’t be seeing her in future olympics. Hell of a way to go.
• This blog, and nearly everything else public-facing I’ve got my hands in, is hosted by DreamHost. Every so often, they’ll pull a very minor oopsy that leaves me kind of scratching my head. Or, in some cases, scoring a discount. Hey, not my fault I already bought what they were advertising.
• Everywhere you turn nowadays, seems something either made by or hosted by Google’s cropping up. First search, then email, then their own IM service, their own answer to MS Office online, their answer to Map Quest, you name it. I made a crack or two about Google being pretty much all over the place. And, almost as though they were just proving me right, they went out and bought Aardvark–a realtime search engine I’ve been known to use that actually forwards your questions onto other users who might have an answer. Hey, Google, I’m still sorry about that. Seriously.
• Skipping back to the olympics, because we do that, our record breaking amount of gold metals was contributed to by Maelle Ricker. I wrote about it a few minutes after it happened. And she’s still a popular–well, as popular as can be expected for a blog this size–search term.
• I live in either a very tiny city or a very large small town, depending on how you look at it. I still had no idea exactly how tiny, or how slow, we were–until I learned there are actually still places here–big places here–that don’t have DSL yet. Or cable. That they’re still stuck with dialup or nothing. That… scares me. Still.

Fortunately, the month of technical issues has also come to a very conclusive end with the month of February. Although, there’s still the pesky little issue of a laptop that doesn’t quite work the way it should. But, can’t have everything. There’s your look at what we did have in the month of February. I’d say hopefully March ends up a litle better, but I know better. STill, I’l keep blogging. Interested? Keep reading.

January’s been an interesting/exciting/entertaining month, to be sure. Definitely more entertaining than I figured it could be, what with mom’s unplanned trip to the hospital and all–she’s very well recovered now, by the way. Other folks found things interesting in January, too. Have some highlights.

• Every geek should have a netbook. It’s a rule or something. They’re smaller, lighter, cheaper, and damn near as powerful as your average laptop nowadays. Not to mention they can probably take a hell of a beating. Still, to say I don’t have my reasons for not owning one would be a lie. I like my machines to last for, say, more than a year.
• Mom’s unexpected trip to the hospital started at a casino in Quebec. And promptly lasted over 3 days. Most of that time was spent waiting to figure out whether or not she’d need surgery. Fortunately, the surgery she did need was hardly anything major and her recovery was quick.
• I like the theoretical idea of the iPad. I don’t like its design on quite a few levels. No multitasking? On a portable computer? Really?
• I get all kinds of spam in my inbox. Some of it is just plain moronic. And some of that, even, still fools people. I wonder just how many username/password combinations this one actually got out of people.
• If I’m ever in the market for a new machine, someone please remind me about this post. I refuse to look at it right now, on the grounds that it may distract me from writing. But I still want those machines. Apparently, so do a few other people.

might be inclined to say there was a fair bit of at least semi-useful to someone content posted in January. Except this would be my blog, and I very rarely post anything semi-useful here–so I know better. Still, it’s an interestingly nice thought. Now, back to posting bits of randomness that constitutes my life in a nutshell. The content may improve, but don’t count on it.

The month hasn’t been as active on here as they probably should be. I’ve been skipping back and forth across the border, plus with Christmas and all the preparation for that folks in general just haven’t been browsing as much. Still, those that did browse were quite interested in what I had to say this month.

• We’ve been having issues with our web host, DreamHost, a fair bit this year. I ranted about that, and actually got a possible decent recommendation out of it. Might be useful in the event I don’t feel like self-hosting everything I use.
• Folks in Rochester don’t do Thanksgiving quite like I’m used to. comparing the two was interesting in a few ways, and not something I thought to do before.
• Sometimes, relaxation comes in all sorts of odd forms. And sometimes, disability services–yes, even in Canada–try to screw folks over when they least need it done. Like, for example, all the time. I wrote about both.
• All kinds of things get said about us as Canadians. We’re overly polite. we’re fans of our beer and poutine. Hockey is to Canadians like Christianity is to the right wing of the political spectrum. And sometimes, we stumble across proof. It’s then that I get amused.
• Jessica’s birthday went off without a hitch. There was plenty planned for it, much done, and a post written particularly for that occasion.

It’s been an interesting month, for sure. And an interesting couple months since I started getting back into blogging. Hopefually that says a whole lot about 2010, and maybe I might actually find a point for this thing beyond random personal and sometimes trivial facts about stuff that doesn’t matter to anyone else but me. But until then, random personal trivialities it is. Stick around this month if you like. It might be fun.

On average of about once a month, I like to try and capture a snapshot of things of general interest people have been pointing to here. Mostly for my own curiosity, but also because sometimes if they find it interesting, they might not be the only ones. Since the thing’s only been online for a little less than a month, the interest level’s probably gonna be through the floor, but oh well, I’m doing it anyway.

Since the blog came back from the dead in the first week of November, 275 unique visitors ran across these posts, and probably pointed a friend or two to reading them.

• The truth behind the Canadian stereotypes
• On why I’m becoming a Linux convert
• Winter makes a drive-by of the Ottawa valley
• On Christmas shopping, and the brain damage that results

There you have it. Bits and pieces of my life, documented and found interesting by folks. Hopefully it’s as interesting a read as it was entertaining when I was doing it.

Disclaimer: statistics may not be accurate, as this doesn’t count those of you reading this on Livejournal, which for the moment I’m unable to track. Hey, LJ, if you’re reading this, fix that. Also. MY ability to spell, and my ability to actually remember to link to the posts in question, seem to have taken a vacation. Here’s hoping next month’s is better.