From the way back department, a thing that would be useful. Very useful, actually. Which makes it all the more likely it’s just not about to happen. Considering the love (*) we’ve been getting from the government of late, I’d be inclined to think useful things for ODSP folks take a back seat to useful things for executives in the healthcare industry. But, since we’re being wishful and all that, have a thing.

Oct 24 7:33pm: do i get extra money for christmas when i’m on odsp

Good idea. Won’t ever be seen. Same with extra money for just about anything else–like a phone bill, even though not having one makes trying to do anything useful with ODSP a very interesting little exercise in migraine. Of course, I’d love to be proven wrong–there *is* a budget coming down in a week. Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

(*): The government does love us. Or rather, they love to hold us up as a statistic they’re fixing while all the while fixing to do not a whole lot about this mess. But hey, why split hairs? We don’t need all that fancy stuff–like, you know, rent flexibility. That junk’s for the working class.

I’m a little late to the party, but welcome to the fold, Charles. Taking over the finance ministry after the hot mess of the last, oh we’ll say 10 years can’t be what you were looking for when you ran for office. But, I suppose congratulations are still in order, given that–well, whether you were looking for it or not–it’s officially all yours. So, congratulations. Please don’t completely screw the pooch.

I don’t do well with preamble, and wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did, so I’ll get to the point. The Ontario disability Support Program (ODSP) has been the Ontario government’s favourite punching bag since the mid to late 90′s. In fact–that was, and is still, one of the things your liberal party continues to blame on the conservative government you replaced–a decade after you replaced them. Here’s the problem, though. The situation of people on ODSP hasn’t exactly done a whole lot of improving in that time. My last actual check on the ODSP situation, all of which you can easily brows over here, gave every indication that while people on ODSP are improving financially, they’re not doing so at a rate that will allow them to continue to live independently (disclosure: for the moment, I am one of those on ODSP, but I’m hoping to change that in the not too distant future). Added to that, the gap between what a person on ODSP receives and Ontario’s minimum wage–and, subsequently, what an able-bodied individual with nothing preventing them from finding and keeping work can and does earn–continues to widen, thus effectively defeating the purpose of a minimum wage when seen in the context of an individual who can’t find work due to a disability.

Presumedly, Ontario’s minimum wage was adjusted since 2004 to its current level of $10.25/hour to account for increases in cost of living. However, recipients of ODSP have not seen a similar increase–or, in fact, anything close to that over that exact same time. Assuming you’re getting the maximum allowable on ODSP, before any additional credits/bonuses/what have you such as an allowance to provide care for a guide dog, on an hourly basis you’ll top out at roughly $6.71, or $1075 per month. From that $1075 per month, you’re expected to pay for rent, electricity, groceries, heat, a phone (ODSP doesn’t consider it a necessity, but try getting a job or even reliably communicating with ODSP without it), and that’s just at a minimum. Want anything extra? Like, say, to be able to aford an air conditioner should your place not include it in the rent? For that matter, want to be able to live in a place that includes things like air conditioning in your rent? Not happening on current levels of ODSP. Especially not happening in a market like Toronto, Ottawa, or pretty much any other major city–thus ruling out pretty much any chance a recipient of ODSP has of moving to a location that would increase the recipient’s chances of finding work.

I get it. Ontario’s $9 billion in debt. You’re not expecting to see it clear that debt entirely until 2016. It might not have been quite so bad had it not been for a couple of gas plants, eHealth, the OLG mess, and the several other self-inflicted wounds that could have probably been avoided if somebody somewhere’d used their freaking brain. But it’s there, and now you get to deal with it. Awesome, except for all the ways in which it’s not. But “deal with it” doesn’t mean leave the folks on ODSP further behind than they already are. Paying rent shouldn’t need to come at the expense of shorting yourself a week’s worth of groceries, or going without heat in January so you don’t need to short yourself that week’s groceries. Do the math, Charles. Other current and former MPP’s already have, and it ain’t pretty. You have the ability to do more than provide lip service. Give it a try. If for no other reason than the opposition already has enough reason to want an election. Why go handing them a free one? That’s what I thought.

As I do way, way too often, I’ve gone and fell off the blogging wagon. But, uh, at least I’ve kept up with the ones who haven’t? Yeah, okay, that works. For the 75 quadrillionth time, I’m going to attempt to fix that. And because there are post ideas in my head, that will probably last–er, well, at least a week or two. I should probably use this thing for, if nothing else, a dumping ground for anything and everything technical that floats through my head. And I probably will. but that’s not what this post will pretend to be. Because there are ideas, and because they’ll probably get their own posts in due time, have a thing in list format. Because lazy, and caffeine’s all the way over there.

• I promise myself I won’t watch hockey this year, and the Leafs go and make the playoffs. It figures. But I’m still not watching hockey this year. Screw you, NHL.
• Alright, so it’s still april. And April more often than not is usually a less than stellar month for the Bluejays–at least that’s the line that gets handed to us on a yearly basis. But we were told to expect big things. Approximately 1.5 of us are still waiting.
• Finding a routine takes on a whole new meaning after you’ve moved a handful of times in the span of less than a year. Interestingly enough, so does finding the things that make up your routine. Or your kitchen.
• I pay for TV for the first time in a couple years, and am reminded why I stopped. Note: that does not mean I’m stopping again–at least not until the baseball season either ends or implodes. I know better.
• Small note to Ottawa’s weather paterns. Or, rather, weather paterns in all manner of places. It’s near the end of April, and places are still seeing snow. We only just got finished with the below freezing–again. You’re fired. Oh, and the first person to blame this on global warming buys me a bottle of vodka. I don’t doubt it’s global, but I’m still waiting on the warming.

I’ll freely admit it. Last year, I just couldn’t get in to the whole baseball thing. I wanted to, like nothing else. But I just wasn’t feeling it, as in at all. I’m pretty sure the Jays weren’t either–mostly because, well, that’s the only thing I can think of to explain where and how we finished. I tried not to get overly enthusiastic about this season. Yes, in spite of the fact the off season brought in a minor explosion and a major offensive. But see here’s the thing. I sat through spring training. Not all of it, mind, but enough of it. I saw awesome. I saw wicked nifty. I even saw a couple very humanlike screw-ups. But largely, I saw a team that, on paper anyway, should do somewhat better than dead last in the american League east. Of course if I’m wrong I still have the Braves to fall back on, but I’m sort of hoping I’m not wrong. Because the last time I was anywhere near world series baseball and actually had a team I enjoyed cheering for, I was 10. You’ve got two guesses which team that was.

It’s opening night in toronto. It’s home run season. It’s ball time. I plan to be in the living room, plunked in front of the TV, with pizza and a coke–which may or may not contain something alcoholic. This is what hockey would be if hockey wasn’t nailed in the kneecaps by players who make way too much and want more and owners who have more money than brains and want to spend less. This is my sport. And after about 7:00 PM tonight, that’s about all I’ll be interested in. But don’t worry. It’ll all be back to normal at some point later. Until we do it all over again tomorrow. It might not look like summer right around now, but what the hell. Let’s play ball.

I was spoiled twice my first go round with TekSavvy. And, after growing an issue or 5 with Bell during the move to the new place (Yeah, because who didn’t see that one coming?) I figured it was high time I give them try number 2. Why? Because awesome sauce, kids. And not even 6 months after I give these folks a look, I get this in my email.

Dear JAMES HOMUTH,

We are writing to inform you of some really great changes to your Internet service from TekSavvy. We are lowering pricing and passing on the savings to all of our customers! How TekSavvy is that?

As of your next billing date, you will notice that the Internet package you are subscribing to will change from High Speed DSL 25 Unlimited / DSL à haute vitesse 25 Illimite at $77.99 to High Speed DSL 25 Unlimited / DSL 25 Illimité – ON – RED at $57.99.

No action is required on your part. As of March 27th, 2013 TekSavvy automatically made the updates to our system. Your next bill will reflect the new pricing.

To find the latest news from the TekSavvy Team like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or visit teksavvy.com.

Thank you for your continued support, and loyalty.

Sincerely,

The TekSavvy Team
TekSavvy Solutions Inc.
We’re Different. In a Good Way.

I deal with way too many business to measure on a daily basis, and this is the first time any single one of them, be they tech related or not, has sent me an email escentially saying “here, have $20 off your bill for the next forever”. I almost went looking for the catch. But then of course, Twitter blew up and well, it’s not april fools. So here’s a question. Why aren’t more people interested in what the smaller guys have to offer? I wish I had the answer, but heaven knows they’ve just increased my interest. Asking me to please not pay them so much money? Yes please. Common sense ISP’s for the epic win. So who wants a switch?

It’s amazing how involved folks get with the whole april fools day idea, even right down to doing things that honestly wouldn’t be surprising–hey, Google killed their Reader platform, so it’s not completely beyond the realm of possibility for them to off Youtube. And with the day being 3 hours old, I’m already highly amused. Why? Well, let’s see.

• Youtube dies a death today. All along it’s been a contest for the awesomest video, and it goes see ya later while the judges pick a winner. I knew I should have downloaded that Jeff Dunham video.
• In Youtube’s place, Google’s beta testing a new product, called Google Nose. Finally, I can make the office here smell like the outdoors without the risk of opening the window and freezing my everloving ass off (hi, still nearly 5 degrees out, nice to see ya). Also comes in handy if it happens to be -40 and you still want that freshly cut grass smell.
• Apparently Google’s the only one taking an early start at this whole gag product thing, but hey it’s worth it. Kind of. especially if you happen to like the colour blue–and maybe want your entire email system to reflect it. Personally I’ll stick with my self-hosted email, but hey–somebody might just sign up for this one.
• Because everyone pretty much has been dumbed down to LOLSpeak anyway, Twitter’s offering the LOLSpeak edition of its service, TWTTR, for free. Meanwhile, the grown-ups who actually want to continue forming proper sentences, complete with non-missing letters, will be paying $5/month. They’re also offering the ability to extend your tweet limit by an additional character, for a price depending on the popularity of the character you need (*). A mighty fine way for me to actually put some missing punctuation back on the end of some of my damned tweets. Hey Twitter, let’s talk.

And it’s Google 4, the rest of the world 1. Not bad for a thing that only just started. You should probably disconnect your internets if you don’t have a reasonably good bullshit filter, at least until 12:01 Tuesday morning. Things should return to normal around then. Normal, and baseball. Mmmmm…. baseball.

(*): I’d actually not mind seeing a feature like this. And paying for it. Though, I’d be interested in maybe a discount for all the Tweets who’s ending pounctuation I had to lop off just to make the damn thing fit. On the other hand, perhaps that’s why it’s on the April Fools list–Twitter’d be paying *me* money.

For most of the world, it’s Easter. at least, on the east coast, for the next… we’ll say… less than an hour. But for anyone who maybe doesn’t cellebrate easter, or has maybe more important things on their plate besides that, today is also world backup day. In honour of that, let me tell you how I work.

I’m insanely paranoid about my backups. To the point where at any given time, it can be pretty well guaranteed I know exactly what’s backed up where, and have backups of those in at least two other places. Let me run things down on a basic level. The server hosting this website has 2 hard drives, both of them 2 TB. On the first is everything I’m running–the OS, the software that runs the site, email, you name it. On the second, is every single configuration file, line of code, database, log file, random thing that just doesn’t really have a home in any other category. And on that drive, it’s backed up in 3 different locations–just in case one of them goes on vacation. Or, you know, on the off chance I need to quickly pack up and slingshot my crap from this server to some other in an aweful goddamn hurry. The advantage of also doing it this way is, pretty much on demand, I can grab a copy of that backup, and pull it to any location I choose with enough room to hold it–like, we’ll say, somewhere local if I suspect some fool’s intent on nuking the server. It also allows for a bit more flexibility–let’s say, for instance, I decide to once again fire up a Dropbox instance on the server. Configuring it to serve as a thing to hold backups would be only too easy, and actually be moderately a painless process. The advantage to that of course being I’d have local access to those backups, regardless what my definition of local is, so long as I have access to Dropbox. Kind of makes emergency “Oops I screwed it good” recovery a thing.

What does that mean for the hosted folks? In short, barring a nuclear bombardment that takes out the entire eastern/central region of North America, anything and everything data is relatively breakageproof. Of course if a nuclear bombardment on that scale ever becomes a thing, I suspect “where’s my crap” won’t be the first question on the list. But this also gives me a personal thing I can use later, should I ever manage to stop being bounced around and actually shove my foot in a professional door just enough so that it’s not slammed on my nose. I’ve had absolutely no professional training in this or any other area, and I’m more comfortable with the backup solution I have right now than I would be if I was paying someone else to do it. Largely, I suspect, because I know exactly where everything is and it’s a simple copy/paste if ever I need to unbreak something. But, I think, also because if it does go sideways, I don’t need to worry about holding someone else to account who doesn’t have a dog in this fight. It’s my data. It’s my friends’ websites. It’s another friend’s email. It’s all very good reasons for me to pay the fuck attention. And that, I think, is how I work best. Which reminds me. I think I’m due for a local copy pull…

Remember Feedburner? Remember just about every website with an RSS link usually had it pointed over there? Were you reading long enough to remember when I forecasted its pending death? Well, apparently it’s still doing death twitches. I’m knee deep in RSS feeds (yes, still, in 2013–sue me). It’s how I pull together some of the stuff what ends up posted to the site in a snark sandwitch. I also use it to keep an eye on my own RSS feed (*). Or I did, until my own RSS feed wasn’t actually updating–which was odd, given I run a few things that require the RSS feed to work properly and they were still doing what I told them to. As it turns out, I wasn’t actually monitoring my RSS feed. Well, I was, but Feedburner’s version of it. And, as it turns out, Feedburner stopped pinging my RSS feed a few weeks ago and it just completely escaped my notice until I decided to check and make sure nothing in a couple previous entries produced weird and interesting results when fed. Which is also why when I hit the feedburner URL directly, the newest post on the list was somewhere around 2-3 weeks old. Of course, there was nothing whatsoever running across any of the channels I follow that said things were coming to a sudden stop, but considering Google had closed down its feedburner blog and Twitter account, that doesn’t really all that much surprise me either.

If you’re following the RSS method already, awesome. If you’re wanting to toss the link for someone else to follow, use this one. And if you were one of the 1.2 people who read this thing through Feedburner, whoops. But I didn’t do it. Thanks for reminding me though, Google–I knew I was missing something. Now let’s not go breaking anything else, yeah? I’ve already got to eventually invent a replacement for Windows Live that isn’t Twitter. Or Facebook. Besides the rest of the internet does a mad scramble type dealy when anything Google shuts down (see also: google Reader). As the kids say, ain’t got no time for that.

Feedburner was left for dead in late 2012. I’m pretty sure it’s kind of inching closer to that in 2013. And all it took was the damn thing trying to give me a heart attack and making me think maybe I up and busted something. Not cool, but thanks for the reminder. Now maybe you aughta mail the 2.4 people who still use it and probably haven’t caught on just yet. Hey–it’s a thought.

(*): Not like that, you tool. For technical reasons. My head’s not that big. Besides–all my posts are on Twitter if I really wanna see what I look like in print. But why?

It’s a little late for best/worst of 2012 lists, but no one ever said I stuck to a schedule. Besides, this one amuses particularly because, well, server admin. So it’s kind of a big deal, if you get me. And also it beats the royal hell out of an entry wherein Amazon tries screwing folks over twice just for fun, which is probably nothing new by this stage. Of course that could also mean I’ll have nothing to write about in a day or two and get back to that one, but hey you’ll have that. As for now, you’ll have the worst passwords of 2012.

Like one of the commenters to that article, I’m very glad–and yeah, okay, a little surprised–that “admin” isn’t on that list. Personally “master” is almost as bad, but considering how many people almost never actually change the default passwords to things, and those default passwords are remarkably insecure as it is, that’s a thing. Equally disturbing is that passwords like “Jesus” actually exist and don’t cause impressive amounts of damage to the folks what use them. My personal favourite on that list is “welcome”. Why? No, as in, why in the hell? As a password, even if it’s an absolutely brainless password, that doesn’t make sense. As in any. As in at all. As in please, just stop doing anything computer right now, and go back to pen and paper. Typewriter, even. It’s safer. Plus I won’t have to fix you later.

Related: If you use a thing I maintain and have a password remotely close to any of these, I’m probably gonna wanna have a conversation with you. Of course by the time I find this out you’ll probably be wanting to have a conversation with me about exactly how it is we’re gonna unbugger the crap somebody who got hold of your password buggered while you were too busy up in the weak sauce–which will make the conversation I want just that much easier to have. I like it when things work that way. Of course I like it even better when the passwords belonging to folks I fix don’t end up on one of these lists, but hey, you can’t have everything. Just remember to leave your user’s license with me when you’re done and we’ll all be fine. Or better yet, just change your bloody password.

I’m a bit of a sucker for snark. Okay, more than a bit. I’m especially a sucker for snark in the form of a Youtube video that just comes right out and, well, says what the folks I deal with on a somewhat regular basis don’t say (I’m looking at you, Rogers–and, to an extent, Bell). Hell, it’d probably be vaguely easier to stomach if these folks’d just come up and be honest with it. But, well, since there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening in about half a forever, I’ll content myself with replaying this video. If you’re going to do the same, you might want to make sure you’re at home and out of earshot of the little ones–there’s a bit of language. Readers of the RSS or email variety, you’ll have to flip on over to the site unfortunately. It’s Youtube, which means flash, which hates email/RSS. Sorry.

Now tell me. Doesn’t this just wanna make you pick up the phone and have a friendly chat with your local internet/TV tech support? Yeah, me either.

What do you get when you take an ISP accused of being a spammer, the organization doing the accusing, the several security organizations defending the accuser, and one hell of an axe to grind? If you answered a wicked nifty cool DDoS attack, you get yourself a cookie. But since I have no cookies, you can settle for vodka. The attack in question started out just aimed at spamhaus, who manages an antispam blacklist for primarily mail trafick to prevent certain types of spam from hitting a mail server (disclosure: it’s one of the 4 I use, and use heavily). When a bunch of organizations jumped in to help Spamhaus minimise that attack, it escalated. The attack ended up aimed at the folks what provide a backbone to the internet (because someone’s going to ask, it’s explained better than I ever could).

The long and short version is, if one of the connections that make up the backbone of the internet ever takes a dive, large chunks of the internet can potentially take that dive right behind it–it happens every once in a great while, usually because somebody cocked up. But sometimes, it can be triggered for any number of reasons. On Wednesday, it was denial of service time.

Now, these things can typically handle a hell of a lot of trafick. They’d have to, considering pretty much any and all internet trafick eventually passes through them to get, well, anywhere. So you’d think they’d be pretty close to difficult to attack. And you’d be right, more or less–the attack from Wednesday measured at, well, about , eh?

So if you were growing an issue or two on Wednesday, it could have been your local technology. It could have been your ISP mucking something up. Or, it very likely could have been that someone really did just try and break the internets. I might actually be somewhat vaguely impressed–if the attempt at calculating that bandwidth bill didn’t just cause my brain to implode. I hope these folks had uncapped connections…

It never ceases to amaze me exactly how tightly folks will cling to the very same logic that blows up in their collective faces within about 6 months of it being deployed. Perhaps not entirely without some degree of amusement, you see it most often in the two worlds who could use a wake-up call the most. The entertainment world, and the political world. Between the two of them, they’ve managed to piece together a mamoth bad idea on a global scale–and one that could have been predicted to implode before it even got off the ground–in the form of a 3-strikes copyright policy (6 if you’re in the US). In keeping with the entertainment and political worlds’ tradition in this arena, my own 3 strikes system–3 epic failures anyone who used their brain could have seen coming.

Strike 1: File who?

I’ve mentioned it in passing before, but it gets its very own special mention here because, uh, this suddenly isn’t exactly a unique situation. Person happens to be the account holder, but may not necessarily be the most technical case on the block. They likely have the internet for email, Facebook, school and if they’re into that kinda thing and have a brain cell to spare, maybe a little Twitter, but that’s the extent of their internet usage. Not so much, perhaps, for that person’s roommates, but the laws as they stand now don’t really go for that kinda thing–you own the internets, therefore you get the nail. It results in, rather irritatingly if you’re the do your homework check your email go to bed type, needing to have the basic idea of file sharing explained to you before the industry tries a nd fails to sue the everloving pants off you. Win or lose, the New Zealand industry got what they wanted–regardless who did the sharing from where and when, the account holder they went after turned around and cancelled the account–thus probably creating a brand new issue for herself in the process where her education and the like’s concerned. But, hey, there’s no more of that nasty file sharing coming from that address now is there?

Strike 2: Not our material? You’re still guilty!

I enjoy laughing my ass off at the DMCA. Not so much at the folks what get slapped by it–I myself was indirectly and falsely slapped by it not all that long ago–but at a majority of the folks doing the slapping. And with the onset of the US’s 6 strikes policy, all it takes is someone sending you–or rather, your ISP–a DMCA notice (whether it’s an accurate one or not) for you to start heading down the path towards a very rocky internetting experience. The system they’re using to track, identify, process and send those notices for this 6 strikes system? Well, that would be the same system that became highly confused and decided that a mod for Guild Wars, a computer game, was actually a copy of at least one NBC TV show, none of which remotely resemble computer games or mods thereof. No info on whether or not this is court bound, but were this actually to fall under their 6 strikes system (and there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t) the accusation may be all that’s necessary for the ISP to be required to start taking action. For TV shows that weren’t being shared and may not have even existed. Go copyright!

Strike 3: Serving your country is not a defense.

Back to New Zealand for strike 3, and perhaps the more ridiculous of the 3. Where at least the other 2 the argument, if shakey and pretty much unproveable, hadn’t completely entered the realm of being entirely out to lunch, this one left the ball park–and, arguably, the country. Again we have a multiple roommate situation–this one, they’re all in the millitary. The guy who’s name the account’s in, and thus the one who ended up fielding the accusation, was in Afghanistan during the time the industry’s precious copyrights were being violated. The others in the house were apparently deployed in various locations around New Zealand at any given time, so figuring out who did what and when was more than a little bit of an issue. But far be it for the industry to let a little detail like that get in the way. So when the account holder was back from Afghanistan, he had that to deal with. How did he deal with it? Well, see, the thing about serving in a permanent war zone–so I’m told–is you don’t really have a lot of time for stupid when you get back, what with getting used to the fact you’re no longer serving in a permanent war zone and all that junk. So rather than very likely have to drag it out in court, all for events that couldn’t be proved and couldn’t be connected to him by more than an IP address tied to him just based on lack of proximity alone, he paid up. And somewhere, in a press release yet to be written, he’s about to be added to the “file sharers we caught” list. And there just went getting shot at in defense of democracy as a legal defense against copyright.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall in some of the rooms where conversations like these happen, if only because I can’t even guess at the mental and verbal backflipping that goes on to make anything remotely like this sound like something that doesn’t smell entirely of overdone crap on an underdone cracker. Somebody somewhere has to have spoken up and pointed out to these folks that maybe, just maybe, there’s a better option out there other than trying to kill a mosquito with a bazooka and hitting their own feet instead. But, hey, what do I know? I’m just one of those online folks the industry doesn’t wanna hear nothing about or from. Then again, maybe that’s their problem…

This has been sitting over here since October, because I just, honest to goodness, could not find an appropriate way to mock the hell out of it. Even now, I’m having trouble stringing together a post that adequately describes the level of stupid that pours out of this article. This hot little mess has managed, I have no idea how, to overpower my ability for mockery. And all it took was a school teacher, an iTunes account and a topless photo of–I’m going to guess–herself to do it.

Because in 2012-2013 all the cool kids are doing it, a school in Anderson Indiana has taken to issuing iPads for staff and, presumedly, student use. At some point, this particular school teacher came into possession of–or, more than likely, was involved in the creation of–a neck-down photo minus a shirt. I’m guessing the photo was of this teacher, but the article isn’t altogether clear on that part. This teacher, at some point after that photo came into existence, had the school iPad at home for whatever reason. When it came back to the school, that photo was on it. And when some of her students, who presumedly had entirely legal and not quite so pornographic/sexual reasons for making use of the iPad, came across this photo, they were suspended.

And the common sense part of my brain just caught fire. I get 0 tolerence. I don’t think 0 tolerence is overly helpful, but I get the idea behind it. And I get the idea behind a school taking a position this one did on illegal or at least otherwise questionable images in the hands of kids. But, see, here’s the thing. The kids didn’t exactly go out and capture this image themselves–either from the wider internet or snapping the shot directly. That much was already easily established. And yet, rather than firing the teacher who stuck the image on a school issued iPad, they suspended the students who found it. And in so doing, very quickly proved a match for my ability to properly lable the stupid.

It’s entirely possible the teacher didn’t know what she was doing, or maybe didn’t quite grasp the notion that when she hooked a school issued iPad up to her computer, with her iTunes account and other such info on that computer, she would more than likely be syncing everything she’d normally have on her own iThing to the school’s iPad. That wouldn’t be a far stretch to make–Apple’s rules for what will and won’t sync depending are more than a little convoluted at times. But if anyone should be nailed for it under a 0 tolerence policy, you’d think–be it intentional or not–the teacher would be the one to buy it. But then, this is probably why you don’t work for this particular school. At least we can hope the teacher will be just a tad bit more careful next time. Or, in Andersonspeak, maybe now those kids’ll know better than to go looking at random pictures on a school iPad. Yeah, that doesn’t work for me either.

So according to the small explosion that took out my Twitter, earth hour was last night. 8:30 PM EST, the rumour says. Funny thing about it? I didn’t actually notice. Which, probably, is an improvement over before–when, rather intentionally, I noticed and explicitly cancelled it. This year, though, it completely and totally passed me by until I bothered looking at Twitter and the resulting explosion. Here’s the thing, though. Even while not noticing, I still managed to follow some of their rules. Dammit.

• Lights off? Yep–blind, so they wouldn’t do me a whole lotta good anyway.
• TV off? Let’s see. It was a spring training Saturday, baseball was in the afternoon and very likely online anyway, and I’m still swearing off hockey for this year–so that’s an enthusiastic yes. Nothing really all that entertaining on otherwise so why spend the money on electricity for a thing I’m not watching?
• … And that’ll be about where it stops.

For the record, here’s what I never do, and will never do, during earth hour.

• Heat off? It was hovering around the freezing point by the time earth hour apparently came around to say hello. I didn’t feel like a sweater. I’ll just be keeping the heat on, thanks much.
• Computers off? Sorry, no. I’ve still gotta get things done, even if it’s environmental preservation hour. Sorry. Besides–it’s only an hour. I’d of just killed the environment in some other way instead–like going for coffee. Or busing back to the old building to drop in on some friends–oh, wait. Nevermind.
• Delay using the oven, etc? Well, yes–but we had leftovers from a few days ago. So I was doing that anyway. Unfortunately, I probably lost points for using the microwave instead of the oven, but you’ll have that.
• Put off driving somewhere? Well, okay. Sure. We bused instead. Which… Well… Okay… Does about the same environmental damage on average as if they’d actually let me drive. So, er, scratch that one.

So. That’s how I up and didn’t exactly toe the line, and did so without even really noticing I was supposed to. Did the 2% of you or so who did something else enjoy it? I did. And I wasn’t even trying.

Because I still don’t feel like substance, even if it would appear the things what I was figuring on getting done today aren’t actually going to get done, have a one of these. You can take some comfort in the fact most of the things on that list I can safely say even in my unpaid work as the family geek I’ve never heard. However, my favourite–where favourite equals if I hear it one more time I’m going to break a nearly half finished bottle of vodka over somebody’s head–is one I can safely say I hear way, way too much. It’s also the last one on the list–go figure.

Tech Support: “All right. Now click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “Click ‘OK’?”

Tech Support: “Yes, click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “Click ‘OK’?”

Tech Support: “That’s right. Click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “So I click ‘OK’, right?”

Tech Support: “Right. Click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “I clicked ‘Cancel’.”

Tech Support: “YOU CLICKED ‘CANCEL’?!”

Customer: “That’s what I was supposed to do, right?”

Tech Support: “No, you were supposed to click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “I thought you said to click ‘Cancel’.”

Tech Support: “NO. I said to click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “Oh.”

Tech Support: “Now we have to start over.”

Customer: “Why?”

Tech Support: “Because you clicked ‘Cancel’.”

Customer: “Wasn’t I supposed to click ‘Cancel’?”

Tech Support: “No. Forget that. Let’s start from the top.”

Customer: “Okay.”

(15 minutes later)

Tech Support: “All right. Now, are you ready to click ‘OK’?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Tech Support: “Great. Now click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “I clicked ‘Cancel’.”

And this, right here, is pretty much every tech support call gone wrong in my entire professional and unproffessional career. Except with a few dozen choice explitives under the relative protection of the mute button, copious amounts of coffee, and rather liberal consumption of the afore mentioned vodka upon a return to the apartment and relative safety from, uh, other people. It still got me paid, and in still getting me paid I had a hell of a time finding the ability to care, but reading this now, I find myself amazed I didn’t actually do something regretable–like be completely honest while the offending annoyance was still on the phone. I do have *some* class, on occasion. It’s just not all that frequent an occasion.

That type of call is only topped by a thing I can safely say I’ve only ever, as in ever, received a grand total of once. I was working nights, which is what I spent most of my time working at Dell doing, and I get a call from a customer in Texas. Sweetest person you’re ever gonna talk to, and I can tell she meant well. She just… Well. There’s no polite way to describe it–she could really have used an education in basic common sense before being allowed within 50 feet of a computer. Or at least a basic education in how technology worked. Things like no, ma’am, your computer is not linked to the hive mind.

Tech Support: “How can I help you?”

Customer: “I just wanted to know. Uh, are your computers down?”

Tech Support: “Uh. N.n.n.no. Why would we be down?”

Customer: “Oh, I don’t know. But my system hasn’t come on all day and I was wondering if yall were having problems.”

Tech Support: “Sounds like you might have a pretty major one. You’ve tried turning it on?”

Customer: “Oh, yeah–tried every so often. It just doesn’t do anything but sit there. I hit the button you’re supposed to hit and nothing.”

Tech Support: *about to become an all too well documented statistic* “Do me a favour, alright? Let’s just make sure no one’s walked by and unplugged you here. Make sure the cable from your tower–the thing you need to turn on before your computer will actually do anything–to the wall is secure at both ends. Just in case. It could be that minor.”

Customer. “Oh. Now why didn’t I think to check before calling?” *puts down the phone, rummages for a few minutes, comes back* “Everything’s connected. The chord goes from the computer in behind the desk and to the wall. I even unplugged it and plugged it back in just to be sure, but it still won’t turn on. Was that supposed to reset things?”

Tech Support: *internal, dramatic sigh of relief* “No. But, you did confirm what I suspected. You’ve got a thing here.”

Because the internet of things can come crashing down and take the world of innocent bystander systems with it. Or something. I never quite got my head around exactly how A fit into B, as in at all. I probably should have had her explain that to me a little better, but I was sort of occupied with replacing her power supply and motherboard–and trying to find creative ways to tellher what I was doing without opening myself up to the inevitable questions about that being how Dell monitors things to make sure all the appropriate updates are installed and to make sure no one goes and does nasty things with the internets–or something. I honestly have no idea. I kind of stopped listening to that side of the conversation after she figured I was the guy that fixed all the things so she could get her email, or something. No, ma’am, I promise–I’m just the Dell guy. The Dell guy that happens to be holding your motherboard and power supply hostage until you stop playing 50 questions long enough for me to get info from you, and hand you same, but still just the Dell guy. At least she didn’t make me glad for vodka. Just coffee. Lots, and lots, of coffee. And I’m pretty sure I took my lunch break early that day…

I wasn’t originally supposed to be home right now, so planned a relatively fluff day. Sorry if you were hoping for part 3 of the Paramount disaster–but it’ll show up. And probably so will part 4. But as for right now, the fluff. It’s everywhere. And drowning in awesome. Especially if you’re at all into the whole science fiction thing. Why for? Well. Uh. Ahem.

Nov 5 8:23pm: Technology: You promised me Mars Colonies. Instead, I got Facebook. W.T.F.

If that isn’t at least close to the best ever google, as in ever, then I have no bloody idea what is. I mean, come on. Has no one seen the Jetsons? We’re late. It’s all that time spent on Facebook, I tells ya. And they say social media doesn’t hold society back. By the way–if anyone needs me, I’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of Twitter.

This is the second in a series of posts on why Paramount Properties in general, and Greenbank towers in particular, is bad for you. If you’re contemplating a move to Ottawa, or moving from somewhere within Ottawa, this company should be avoided at all costs. For more information, beyond what will be in these entries, just ask.

Moving into a new place is hardly ever fun. there’s the making sure you didn’t leave anything behind in the old place–I’ve done that about half a dozen times already, the making sure you’re not having to chase half your services all over the countryside and then some, the criss-crossing–and, subsequently, the uncrossing–of just about every scheduling wire known to exist, and all this before the first week of your move is over with. The last thing most people want to be adding to their laundry list of moving related foolery is the nailing down of your property manager so you can therefore nail down an equally lengthy list of problems with the new place that need to be addressed–especially when most of it was supposed to have been addressed, or scheduled to be addressed, already. That was us, at around the beginning of October.

the fun actually started before the official moving day, although most of that fun was–surprisingly–out of the property manager’s hands. Before we could move in to the new place, the guy what lived there needed to get his crap and get out. Problem: he had no bloody idea when he’d be doing exactly that. He’d give the manager one date, then change his mind a day or two later. So actually finalizing things was a bit of an exercise in migraine. Still, we knew there’d be problems with the apartment–mostly because we were warned the guy what lived there before us had absolutely no problem whatsoever with not, you know, looking after the place.

When we went in to see the place, to say it was a bit of a war zone was putting it nicely. The door to our storage room was off its frame, and leaning against the wall inside the storage room. Several–meaning most–of the light switches were missing outright their fixtures. there was a hole in the wall of one of the bedrooms. Closet doors were damaged. The screen to our patio was off. The place needed desperately to be painted (that part they told us before we moved in). The list goes on. We were told, before we even moved in, that either before we moved in or shortly after, the property manager would get someone in there to fix things up. Promised, even, that yes, manager lady knew it’d be a wicked hot mess, and it’d be taken care of pronto. It’s why we had no problem signing paperwork, and making arangements so that when, finally, the place was actually vacated, we could move our crap in.

Due to the nature of how things ended up happening, we didn’t get moved in until the day before someone else was scheduled to move in to the old place. So naturally, they didn’t have a whole heaping helping of time to go on a fixy fixy binge before we got our hands on the place. Not helped by anything was the fact when the guy what used to live there took off, he took the keys for the place with him–so priority numero uno became let’s make it so we can actually, you know, lock the place when we leave. That part, at least, we didn’t need to go chasing a fix for–swap out the locks, bring the lock from the old apartment down to the new one, replace the lock on the old unit, bing bam boom have a lock see ya later. It was the rest of it that we got to go fishing for.

The day after we moved everything in, I went to the rental office myself. Here’s the laundry list, in its finalized form. You said it was bad, you were right–this is how bad. They’d get someone in this week, manager lady told me. As soon as humanly possible, but we’ve had a lot of moves, she said, so you might need to wait a bit. We waited a bit. The week, if we’re being honest. No one came knocking. we still had a hole in the wall. We still had no storage room door. Oh–and we found a couple more surprises to add to the list, which was done when I went to ask manager lady why that list hadn’t been touched yet. I got much the same, complete with an I’m sorry I thought it was done already, and she’d have it taken care of this week, as soon as possible but definitely this week. Not holding my breath, and the thought starting to nibble at the outer edge of my mind that we’re kind of pushing the boundaries of legal territory (keep in mind, by this time we’d started speaking with a lawyer due to the last episode), we were prepared to have this drag out until we found somewhere else to move to–we’d started looking pretty much by this point as well, largely as a result of part 1. The money we paid into that place, and it looked almost like someone decided to throw a going away party, then went away before the cleanup crew got there to bill them.

A second week went by. No repair person. No phone call about a repair person. Supposedly the repair person was telling folks he’d been by, but the state of the apartment said no he damn well hadn’t. This time, manager lady was prodded in writing. We got the same general response back. Now, this *was* getting into legal territory. Legally, the landlord has about 2 weeks to address any concerns or issues with the apartment after a move. They were pushing three. And in writing, that was pointed out to them. Once again, repair person would be by this week, as soon as possible. No, that wasn’t going to work. Not unless there was going to be issues upon issues. Repair person was going to be by no later than the next day, or holy hell would there be issues upon issues.

Repair person indeed *was* by the next day. And, much to my shock and amazement, most of what was there actually did get fixed. Somewhat. We had a door to the storage room again. We had working closets. He had to replace the screen for the patio–but we had a screen for the patio. We still had a hole in the wall, but he did come back later on to fix that. Oh, and proper light switches for a change. Well, mostly. He ended up not fixing a few of them, as we’d find out later on, but by then we’d just given up on the whole idea. The place still hadn’t been repainted, which was the one thing they wanted to do shortly after we moved in–because, they told us, this is what they do with all their units in between tennants and if they had the time, it would be done already. And there were still a few things on that list that just generally went untouched, but again, we’d given up with chasing them for it. We were done with this hot mess, whether it was done with us or not. As it turns out, that was probably the smartest move we’d made since this entire soap opera started–we’d see proof of that shortly after we’d moved everything out of that unit.

Paramount Properties, and Greenbank Towers, talked up a good game. But where it came time to translate that into actually getting things done, they passed the buck, dragged their feet, and generally just put off what, at the end of the day, we were paying them for. If they even had documentation that said we were in there to have these things addressed, almost no one read it–confirmation came again after we moved everything out, and will be explored in another entry. They’ll tell you what you’re hoping to hear, show you a sample of the things you’re looking for. But after you sign the papers and everything’s settled, Paramount Properties is not the apartment you’re looking for. In a future entry, Paramount finally starts to show us what they’re all about, for real–and we get the feeling we’re not *really* as welcome as they tell you you are. But as for now, two very good reasons to maybe bump Paramount Properties down a knotch or 5 on your list of possible living arangements. You can, and should, do much better. I’ll even give suggestions, if asked. No one running a business this shot deserves your, or anyone else’s, money. Not even sweet-talking ones.

This is the first in a series of posts on why Paramount Properties in general, and Greenbank towers in particular, is bad for you. If you’re contemplating a move to Ottawa, or moving from somewhere within Ottawa, this company should be avoided at all costs. For more information, beyond what will be in these entries, just ask.

I’ve been around the block a time or three when it comes to apartment shopping in Ottawa. Almost always, the top 5 includes at least one building from Paramount Properties. Everything about them from the outside looking in sets off at least a dozen awesome alarms. The places are usually fairly decent, the staff will usually let you play 20 questions, it’s kind of like you’re dropping in to say hello to a friend. Then you go and move in.

Due to situations with the former roommate, I had to go on a hunt for an apartment in July of last year. Due to some very interesting cock-ups by that self-same former roommate after becoming my former roommate, there suddenly became an opening. It was sharing an apartment in Greenbank towers, a property owned and maintained by Paramount. I moved over there, with May, at the end of August. We’d already made arangements to move at the end of September into a larger apartment (she had a one-bedroom at the time), and the folks over there seemed perfectly fine to go about the idea. About a week after I moved in, things got nifty.

Paramount Properties allows you, like most places do, to set up preauthorised debit for your rent–the better not to have to chase down your landlord with your hand out and beg them to find 2 minutes to take your money, my dear. For 3 months, that system worked as designed. From June, right through August (remember, May had this place before I moved over), there be no problem. Come time for September, there be problems. Rent is due on the first, and usually comes out by then. It being we were dealing with a weekend and labour day and the like, we expected to maybe see it come out a little later. So by about September 6, it still hadn’t come out. We go tap on the property manager–the second one in a year, but I’ll get to that in another entry. “Hey, manager lady? Take your rent, please.” “We’ll take it,” she tells us. “Holiday and whatnot. It’ll come out, promise.”

We give it until around the 10th or 11th. Tap tap tap. “Hey, manager lady? You still haven’t taken our rent.” “It’ll come out. Give it a bit.” “Look. We have it. It’s like right here. Paying you will take 45 seconds. Then it’s done.” “We’ll take it out. Just what with the holiday and all. Give it a bit longer.”

It’s the 15th of September, by this point. Legally, we’re now officially late with the rent. Not a good place to be, if you’re us and in the middle of a lease and not planning on packing up and moving right the bloody hell now and three quarters. We’re getting a little bit twitchy. We go back to the rental office. “Okay. Look. It’s been two weeks. We’re staring at the prospect of being branded late. Take. Our. Goddamn. Rent.” “Yall have automatic debit. It’ll happen. Put your bank card away–we’ll take it. I’m on the phone with the guys what handle that today.”

By this time, we have school things starting up, so our time, energy and money is about to be diverted to much more fun and interesting prospects. Of course, by this time, tuition money hasn’t come in just yet, so part of that diverting is to invent varying degrees of financial creativity so as not to end up needing to slap a deferral on top of everything else education. We gave up trying to prod the landlord at this point. They’d either take it, or they wouldn’t. And if they didn’t, it would become part of the diversion–they’d just have to wait their bloody turn, now. We had things to do, and just ran out of time to sit on a property manager. So we up and went about our business for the rest of the month. No word from Paramount. We paid what needed paying at the beginning of October. We paid the rent on the new place in the beginning of October–I’ll get to the issues with the new place in yet another entry. We didn’t set the new place up for automatic debit, given the issues we ran into in September–which hadn’t yet been resolved by then, so to avoid a double payment coming back to bite us later, just no thank you please. That was done. No mention of the rent for September, which we still didn’t see come out. We weren’t bringing it up again, and neither did they. So the rent money went temporarily to tuition.

First two weeks of October, we didn’t hear a word. We were getting things sorted out for school, and getting ready to head out of town for the Thanksgiving weekend. Chasing a landlord who we’d previously offered to pay was not exactly up there on our priority list. So we did what we did and would circle around to that hot mess later. Except they circled around to us first. And, on the 15th of October, they started making noises about rent we hadn’t paid. Not rent we’d offered to pay and they’d asked us to wait on–but rent we hadn’t paid. The back and forth went on over the phone initially, with Paramount deciding on the 15th that yes, we owed rent, and yes, we’d pay at least half of it right then and there. Being not made of money, being that the month was half over, and being that we had school to pay for, oh–and being that we’d already made several attempts to pay them, we didn’t have that money handy right then and there (see: schooling, paying for). And this is around when we learned our property manager had amnesia.

The conversation started out innocent enough. Just calling to let you know we don’t have your rent for September, all that lovely stuff. We asked what happened to Paramount taking it out of the account. They tried and couldn’t, says manager lady. Maybe we should get hold of our bank, just in case something went sideways on their end. Hey–it’s happened before, so I was willing to give Paramount the benefit of doubt. That, was a mistake. In the span of about 10 minutes, we learned 3 things. Thing the first: your bank logs *everything* under the sun–whether it’s a successful something under the sun or not, so if John Q. cheapy says he up and tried charging your face off, and he did actually up and try charging your face off, the bank can usually tell you he tried–and why he didn’t succeed. Thing the second: The folks over at Paramount aren’t very good liars–they didn’t do a damn thing, and it showed after the afore mentioned 10 minutes (to cover our asses, we called a second time with pretty identical results). Thing the third: It’s been an aweful goddamn long time since I’ve had to, but I can still call someone out left and right if and when I need to–especially if you’re gonna decide today’s an awesome day to screw with me.

So it’s back to Paramount we went. Hey, lady? Yeah. About that problem at the bank. Feed me another one. Then, it got interesting. She still insisted there was a problem taking rent out in September. I should probably point out none of the info changed since August–when they were perfectly capable of making money disappear. She still insisted that we pay at least half of it right then and there (see also: money, not made of), and wasn’t entirely all too excited about the prospect of backing down from that–or being told that she’d get rent money whenever we get tuition, since the former had to go to cover the latter and, since they weren’t altogether too concerned with taking the former when it was due, they could damn well wait now. But the really fun part’s what happened next. Like it was a thing she practiced in the mirror that morning, and completely with a straight face, she said we should have made alternate arangements to have rent paid in September. Now, I’m gonna let you stop right here and go read a couple paragraphs up. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

May and I both thought she might have been smoking something. We both explained to her, more than once, that we tried paying the thing directly–in bloody september. And, taking care that our poor manager may be suffering the early onset of amnesia or something, we reminded her that we approached her in september on a few occasions to pay the thing manually. We reminded her that she up and said no. repeatedly. We reminded her we persisted. And, we reminded her she still said no. She was highly uninterested in hearing any of it–going so far as to say we knew this needed to be paid, and this was our responsibility. Uh. Yeah? Whatcha think we were trying to do, here, chicken little? We certainly tried not to keep our money.

It got to the point where property manager wanted a sitdown with myself, May, her, and her manager. Both she and her manager were still under the mistaken impression they’d be getting money from us. Since now we were over a month late, and we weren’t overly large fans of what we were apparently heading into, before we did anything else we decided to go legal. Not full on legal, per say. But lawyers were contacted, advice was saught, and decisions were made. We put everything in writing, in an email to the folks at Paramount–specificly, to the property manager with a copy sent to her manager. We explained this is what we were told, this is what we responded with. We were told to wait, we offered to pay it manually, and we were still told to wait. Repeatedly. And it was explained to them that, on the advice of a lawyer, we wouldn’t be attending that there sitdown meet and greet. Oh, and by the way, you’d still be getting your rent money as soon as tuition funds come in and not a minute sooner, but thanks for trying.

They backed down almost immediately after getting that email–only mentioning the outstanding rent once, at the beginning of November, and being pointed right back to the email we sent them (see also: amnesia, suspected). And, when tuition funds came in later on in November, we gladly went back down to the rental office, and this time, manually paid the damn rent. But by then, they’d cluster fucked the situation so badly that we weren’t entirely sure they wouldn’t pull something similar in 6 months. Any trust, any professional level of respect, that might have been there beforehand was shot. They got crooked, and when they were called on it, they got greedy. And when they were called on that, they doubled down–there was no room whatsoever for the possibility they screwed this one. They flopped, then tried pinning the blame for the flop on us.

That wasn’t all that lead to us deciding not only to never rent from this company again, but to make as many people aware of this company’s business practices as humanly possible. But, it was a mighty fine start. And by the time anything else happened, we’d already decided we weren’t sticking around there any longer than we had to. In the next, hopefully not quite as lengthy entry, another significant contributing factor. How to ruin a professional relationship in 30 days–by not actually dooing your job.

In which, shockingly enough, I manage to do this thing before March is a week old. Is there hope for me? Yeah, don’t count on it. Worth a shot, though. Oh–and I manage to do it in around all manner of technological breakage. Which, of course, just means next time the breakage’ll try a little harder. While I’ve been breaking things, though, folks have been doing the getting busy with the finding trivialities. It’s lead to some repeat performances–and one or two things I didn’t expect, which may or may not be slightly worrying if you’re the type that should be blogging this stuff. I’ll mention those a little later on. As for now, the good stuff. Shush–it’s good, dammit.

For the month of February, 1056 of you wasted 1 minute and 25 seconds trying to find something vaguely useful to salvage from this mess. I’d play the optimistic card and say something about how you might have found something if you’d just have stuck around here a little bit longer, but come on. If I had anything that major to say, folks’d pay me for it. But you found something, anyway. Here’s what most of you were interested in for the month, as always, courtesy Google Analytics.

• In January, I was introduced to an interesting twist on the whole New World Order conspiracy theory idea. I think it was trying to abide by Canadian content laws or something, as it pretty much outlined exactly how, where and why the government of Ontario, through it’s Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), was out to hang us all. Or maybe just starve us all. Whichever. I mocked it, and nearly two months later it’s still attracting attention. Government attention, no doubt. Is anyone offering witness protection?
• I call Bell Canada the Microsoft of the ISP universe. If there’s a standard in existence, they blow right past it at high speed. Usually going the other way. In December, they pushed an update to their connection hub modem that blew right past basic networking standards. Again, in the opposite direction. Since December, it’s made the most popular list every month so far–and attracted a handful of comments in the process. And Bell still hasn’t acknowledged they busted their modem. Hey–that also sounds extremely familiar.
• I barely use Windows Live Messenger these days. Actually over the last few years my usage has pretty much tapered off to around 0, with a few noteable exceptions. Apparently I’m not the only one, as Microsoft has decided this year is a good year for it to die. I warned you that I’d be doing away with it shortly-ish. Admitedly I haven’t gotten to it yet, but largely it’s because I keep forgetting I have the thing. I suppose if it were more annoying I’d remember–but, you know. Eventually, Microsoft will make that decision for me. But maybe hell will freeze and I’ll do something about it before then (*).
• Daniel Alfredson, as the divine one. It just doesn’t
  feel–well–natural. And yet, Siri says so–and Siri’s never wrong, right? I mean–there was that one time, with that one Nokia phone, but come on. Every electronic personal assistant makes mistakes. Although, it does explain the, uh, lack of playoff appearances since about 2004 from a certain team out of toronto. But–er–Alfredson? Really? Not funny, oh holy one.
• Sticking with the sports theme to round out the list, spring training started a couple weeks ago. I’m more than a little interested. When pitchers and catchers reported to start things off, I wondered if the things I was hearing–from not just the folks what get paid to say the things I was hearing–might just translate into something useful this year. I’m still wondering. I mean, it *is* only spring training. There’s still a metric ton of baseball to be had–and the Jays aren’t exactly famous for coming out from underneath it without being at least somewhat flattened by around August or September. But, if there’s something to what I’ve been hearing, at the very least it could be an interesting ride to get there.

And that’s February, in a sort of half-baked nutshell. An interesting little sidenote, that may or may not inspire some research when I’ve gotten around to more caffeine. Of the 1056 of you that stopped by to say hi, 214 of you hit my ODSP page directly. You used any number of search terms to get there–which makes me wonder. Should I be keeping my eye out for something to potentially explode? The overly cautious part of me says hell to the yes. The sarcastic part of me says what the hell else am I gonna find to mock. Okay, majority rules. Look for the results of ODSP related digging–just as soon as I dig out some motivation.

*: No, that does not mean I’ll be using Skype full-time. Or even part-time. I despise Skype with the passionist of passions. If I have literally no other choice, then grudgingly, I’ll fight with the thing. But for the most part, if there’s an alternative, I’ll use it. And I still have a few alternatives. Anything to get out of a program that loves to take my system with it upon crashing–which it does about every second or third load. No thank you please, it only makes me drunk. Now, then. I think I was digging for caffeine. And trivial things.

I needed an excuse to post this video, and my reference in another entry to the guy behind it is a damn fine excuse if I do say so myself. Well, that, plus it’s awesome. If you’ve never seen him live, you should. If you’ve never seen him at all, you should be one of the first ones to go click. Oh, and if you *have* seen him live, I incredibly hate you right now. Either way, watch. Just I’d recommend not having anything to drink while doing so.

If you’re reading this via RSS or email, you’ll want to flick on over to the site. It requires flash, and they’ve yet to devise a thing that does flash in email or RSS reliably. Sorry.

I’m probably the exact opposite of a fan of chihuahuas. They’re annoying, they’re yappy, and if you’re not paying absolutely insane amounts of attention you can easily and quite by accident send one spinning across the room. As Jeff Dunham would say, anything I can drop kick over my back fence (Author’s note: hey–I actually have a back fence now!) is not a dog. But I’d hardly classify the things as dangerous. Well, unless you’re already at risk of developing a migraine–good lord but those barks can be lethal on the ears. But apparently, if you live in Windsor, Ontario and own one of these things, and if for whatever reason the thing somehow gets hold of someone (I’m not entirely sure exactly how something that tiny can get a decent hold on someone to begin with), it’s a dangerous dog. And, because it’s a dangerous dog, you’re expected to plaster warning signs on your property and muzzle the thing if it spends even 5 minutes outside–which poses a very interesting question: do they make muzzles in size microscopic?

The snicker-worthy thing about it is, the person in the article who was bitten (a mail carrier, naturally) wasn’t even aiming to have the thing labled.

The mail carrier was shocked to hear about the”dangerous dog” designation, according to Postmedia News. She said she is required to reports such incidents to her manager, who then told her to report it to police.

And presumedly, it was the police what up and decided teeny tiny microscopic thing that is not a dog is lethal. As in, pitbull lethal. Which begs the question: in what universe?

Like I said, I’m no fan of the things. I’ll never own one. I kind of feel sorry for the folks what do. But to put them on the same level as a dog that has a reputation–deserved or not–for going out of its way to attack and/or kill people and other dogs? Yeah, there’s a problem. That no one with the authority to actually solve that problem has had time yet to get around to the common sense chapter of the handbook that should come with having that authority is, well, not surprising, but a little disturbing. I’d be more worried about the damage either one of our dogs could do to a mail person were they inclined to get that idea in their heads–fortunately neither of them get the opportunity to consider proving me right. And yet these breeds in general, and these dogs in particular, would never be considered for being listed as dangerous–hell, one of them’s a guidedog. But they’ll list a miniature football?

The mail carrier, for her part, did what any decent person would do–she got herself to the doctor and got hold of some antibiotics, then went about her day. And the owners of the dog more than likely keep an eye out for her now–and keep the dog inside until they know she’s passed. Or maybe that’s just what I’d do, and have done. As for the city of windsor? I’m keeping eyes open for a chihuahua ban. Because–hey, why stop there when you’ve already jumped off the logic train?

Very occasionally, I’ll pull a random search statistic out of the pile and toss it up here, Usually because at the time there was some degree or several of amusement in its timelyness–or, even, the timing of when I actually manage to find it. Take, well, this one for instance.

Oct 16 6:50am: how to piss off bell canada

Well… If you’re me, you put as much effort into downloading as much crap as you can as quickly as you can, then cancel your service–after bouncing off half a dozen managers who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing, and who’s jobs I could likely teach my technologically challenged mother to do and come out with pretty well better results all across the board. As you can probably figure, there’s a Bell rant brewing. Still. That rant is not today. But feel free to find equally creative ways to piss off Bell. They probably deserve it for something or another.

I’ve always said toronto is not a place I’d like to live, but I’ll cheer for its sports teams–well, in baseball, anyway. Hockey as well, until this year’s lockout. Ottawa is the opposite. I love living here, but I’ll not be caught dead cheering for its hockey team–it still doesn’t have a baseball team. Now, though, it almost seems like Ottawa wouldn’t mind duplicating Toronto’s sports environment–complete with the fact playoff action’s a little sparse round these parts.

Take, again, the hockey situation. There’s the Senators, who’ve managed to make it to the Stanley Cup finals in 2008 and then, uh, not really a whole lot else since then. Compared to Toronto, who’s team–well, yeah, we’ll not go there. Just don’t. As far as baseball goes, Ottawa has never had an MLB team. The minor league team they did have packed up and moved around the same time the Montreal Expos stopped being the Montreal Expos. They want to bring another minor league team to Ottawa, but last I’d heard signs were still hazy–I was told to try again later. They still don’t have an MLB team and I’m not entirely sure this city could support one. They made two attempts at a football team–again, to compete in the same league as that in Toronto. They both imploded and they’re going for a third. And now, apparently, they want to give soccer and basketball a shot.

Ottawa is hardly a sports city. Even if at one point it could have been, I’m pretty sure after everything went bust at the start of the recession it probably can’t really aford to be now. But that doesn’t seem to be stopping the folks what have the money to burn from trying. Look, guys. You’re Ottawa, okay? You’re not Toronto. You can’t be Toronto–it just isn’t in you (see also: transit, efficiency of).

You just can’t do it. And that’s part of what makes the city two times awesome. Don’t you be going off and ruining it over some obsession with being the big city next door, okay? Take it from a guy who frequented there (not by choice). It’s not worth the screwed factor. Tell ya what, though. If you’re going to insist on being called the little toronto, give me a bit of time before you start taking on some of its other characteristics, okay? I’m gonna need to find me a place to move. I wonder if there’s space free in Victoria–who has absolutely no problem with not being Toronto. Now, talking it out of being Vancouver might be a small problem–but hey, there’s awesome in Vancouver. I can work with that.

It’s been a long time since I got to do one of these, largely because while things haven’t really improved a whole lot, they’ve not done much in the opposite direction either. That apparently changed at some point in January. I needed to hit the hospital this past week to bring May home after a minor procedure that required she be overnight. No big thing, really–I could get me there. The hospital wasn’t entirely too far away, to the tune of about a $25 drop each way. I’ve handled worse.

Here’s the thing, though. The Ontario disability Support Program (ODSP) entitles the patient–note: not the one showing up at the hospital with the patient’s belongings–to a lift home from the hospital, or any other medical appointment, with the appropriate level of proof provided (usually confirmation from one of the medical staff that says you’ve been there, you’ve been seen, you need to get home). Because we’re not all Blindy McBlinderson with 24/7 access to a person with both a pair of working eyes and a driver’s license. Also I’m not sure I’d have wanted to wake mine up at 5:30 in the morning if I had that kind of 24/7 access–yes, they might be my sighted servant bitch, but I’m not that cruel.

As I’ve mentioned before, ODSP doesn’t exactly shower us with cash over here. So while it can be afordable getting patient’s things to them, then getting patient home, more often than not it’s afordable at the expense of something else–like I really was hoping I didn’t have to pay to have the prescriptions we were sent home with filled (I didn’t, thank Christ). So I was a teeny tiny bit surprised when, while trying to make arangements to get May and myself home with ODSP’s help, I was informed that as of January of this year, ODSP has stopped offering that service. This according to the folks at the city of Ottawa line that handles requests for such foolery. Again, fortunately for us I didn’t end up needing to pay for prescriptions, but the creative mental tap dancing on the way home would have been impressive were it not to do with figuring out which bill wasn’t getting paid for a couple weeks.

If you’ve been following the ODSP episodes since around 2010, or even if you’re yourself on ODSP, you’re probably very familiar with the extreme difference (note: 2010 figures used) between what folks on ODSP get versus what even folks making minimum wage get. That hasn’t changed much in 3 years–there’s still quite the gap between ODSP payments and minimum wage payments. But ODSP did, at least, have the supports for getting people home from the hospital who otherwise couldn’t get themselves home due to a lack of license, a lack of servant with license, and a lack of public transit service when the discharge order comes in at half past dawn going for it. As of January, they don’t anymore. And they figure it’s perfectly fine if you have to make up the difference out of pocket. Because really, you weren’t gonna buy groceries with that money anyway.

I’ve always said if I had half a choice, I’d leave ODSP in the dust and never look back. I’m still staring down the prospect of giving me half a choice. I get the province is about $25 billion short insofar as the budget goes. I get that they need to trim expenses. I get that they figure we’ll manage to cover it if and when. But I’d be interested in seeing the mental gymnastics that lead to the conclusion that we actually can. Oh, of course–that’s for us to work out. They’re hands off now. Government cost cutting at work. So. About that next election.

PS: You’d figure we’d have gotten a notice from ODSP insofar as they’ve made changes to the service we’re entitled to receive from them. So far as I’ve seen, not so much. Rumour has it that was caught in the cost cutting as well. Damn shame, that.

Edited to add: I originally wrote this entry by email. Apparently when I did that, a link up and broke itself and didn’t get caught by my usual checking and rechecking of things. Go figure. Have a fixed link. Just in time for me to find something else to post about.

Every so often, you’ll hear something about somebody somewhere going into a situation thinking they’re getting an iPad, and coming away from it with the iShaft. Most of the time, it’s because some fool with a lack of any kind of attention span decided to buy the thing from some other fool with a lack of morals–leading to the amusing, if supremely unfortunate, side-effect of fool numero uno walking away with a mirror for the low low price of the going rate for a used iPad. But what happens when the iScam goes corporate?

If you answered something along the lines of Wall Mart gets conned into selling a box of notepads for the going rate of an iPad, then you’re probably the idiot what made it happen. Or your news and my news come from the same place. Whichever. As it happens, the box in question was supposed to be a returned iPad that was packaged in the proper box, professionally and everything, and apparently flagged to just fly right on past any quality control verification at the store in question–because it wouldn’t occur to a customer to maybe try getting a refund on their rather expensive electronic device while still sort of casually holding onto the offending electronic device. Wall Mart initially denied that there was a problem, but when the media decided to start poking around, they figured now might be a fine time to go seeing if maybe there was, you know, a problem. So now they’re reviewing surveylence video to see if they can find the guy what did the return–good luck, if the customer service desk at that Wall Mart’s anything like the ones in, uh, any Wall mart I’ve ever been in. Meanwhile, I’d be putting a rush on that exchange. The warranty on those iNotepads isn’t exactly iron clad.