last night’s game didn’t entirely suck. I mean, there was…. well… that is… we scored one. Yeah, that’s it. Oh, and for the first time this year I managed to catch most of it live, rather than sleeping through it and remembering the next day to flip it on before LeafsTV stops showing the damn thing. Yeah, that’s about it. I can’t even blame this one on the goalie–I don’t quite think this one’s even been in an NHL arena before. At least not for a game, if he has at all. Now, the guys in front of him? Yeah–they are in need of refresher courses. It’s only the preseason. Two more weeks. It’s only the preseason. Thank god, it’s only the preseason.
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Sabres 3, Maple Leafs 1.
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What happens when you slam one foot on the gas, the other on the break?
You go precisely where my current employment situation’s going. In the Online Support department, I’m waiting on papers to be pushed, things to be signed, and heads to be kicked in before HR people call me back with a potential start date. On the job possibility in Ottawa, I’m waiting for HR lady to get back to me. I spoke with her last week. She said she was looking into something. I called her the last two or three days this week, got her voicemail and no returned phone call. My mission, and I will choose to accept it, is to continue haunting her voicemail until such time as she either calls me back or suffers a small mental breakdown. In the meantime, I have an appointment this coming week to iron out a few more details re: the position here in Pembroke. Once that appointment happens, I should have a better idea who’s doing what and for how many cookies. Which means Ottawa’d better start haulling ass if they want me that badly. My bank account can’t take much more of this being unemployed thing–it may be first come, first served. Yes, even if the first that comes rates only slightly above jabbing me in the eye with a pitchfork. I can always move up from here; I can’t go much further down. I can, however, go back to this hockey game. So that’s what I’ll do.
PS: I said it before, and I’ll say it again. Job market, die in a goddamn grease fire. Thank you.
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Flyers 4, Maple Leafs 3.
Another game, another replay. All I can say is they put the bad one in net. Solid through 40 minutes, rolled over through 20. I sincerely hope they don’t hand him the starting job this year, but I can’t help but get that sinking feeling. Oh well, on the up side, captain D put one in the net last night. Can’t complain on that one.
In other news, for the first time this year, I’m actually awake, conscious and mobile enough to watch tonight’s game in Buffalo live. It’s a historic moment, let me tell you. Now, if I can just convince them to stop losing.
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Note to the city of Ottawa: do this. Now.
Rallying cry for more housing money
In what can only be described as a rallying cry for more support, affordable housing advocates from across Ottawa came together Thursday to call on municipal council and mayoral candidates to commit to funding more social housing.
The numbers are pretty simple: $15 million annually for the next 10 years to help build 10,000 affordable housing units. That will help get the 10,000 families on the social housing waiting list into homes.
Folks, you’re being freed from having to fund ODSP payments out of your own pocket. I’m not even sure why Ontario felt the need to force the municipality to pay for it to begin with–so that’s why we’ve been getting the shaft lately–what with it being called the Ontario disability Support Program, but that’s why I’m not in politics. Now that Ontario’s finally taking back the costs for doing so from the city, do those of us who’re on the list a huge favour. Build something useful–like, you know, housing units that don’t take up 80% of the check just on rent alone. That’d be awesome.
Seriously, you need to do this. There’s no such thing as a good job in Pembroke, and no such thing as a cheap apartment in Ottawa. And hey, at least then you’re only paying to potentially house the guy from this court case. That has to be a cheaper alternative.
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Let me be perfectly clear.
If I hear one more politician standing up in the House of Commons and say “let me be very/perfectly clear”, before entering into a 5-minute restatement of the exact same answer I heard to a question 24 hours ago, I’m going to pretend we don’t have elections in Canada. Hear that, John Baird?
Related: Why do people in politics insist on asking the same questions 2 and 3 days in a row? Particularly when they know damn well they’re probably going to get exactly the same, word for word answer. Can anyone explain that to me? I’ve run out of clue.
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Maple Leafs 3, Flyers 2.
Another game caught by replay. At least the only excuse I can use this time is I slept through it. And hey, they still won. In a shootout, even. In a shootout in which they didn’t completely fall over dead, even. It’s almost a shame the thing resets itself in a week–I wouldn’t be upset if this game counted towards their season standings. Note to self: don’t get your hopes up–they’ve still got plenty of time to blow up in your face. In the meantime, where’d I put that replay?
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Someone needs to use this as a wedding song. For serious.
It’s probably been done, but I’ve yet to actually see it. Damn shame, given I seriously think this is an absolutely awesome song. When I finally get around to doing the marriage thing, I may run it by the other half of the partnership. Hey, I’m already engaged–it’s about time I start giving things like this at least 10 seconds’ thought. In the meantime, have a video. And if you’re planning to get married and decide to use it, let me know how it works for you.
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Making piracy look good. Again, thanks, CRIA.
God knows there’s about a hundred million arguments in favour of downloading music for free and, supposedly, illegally. And about 3 against it. Argument number 100000001: the licensing fees they’re asking for are a sad attempt at redefining insane. Take the situation surrounding Pandora, an online music streaming service, as an example. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), in its latest attempt to make itself look so hard done by, has decided if the service wants to come to Canada, it’s going to cost them nearly half its gross revenue in Canada to do so. Naturally, in response to the CRIA, Pandora has once again told Canada to go straight to hell. Here’s the kicker, though. According to CRIA president Graham Henderson, it’s not the CRIA’s fault. No, couldn’t be them.
The music industry, meanwhile, says its fees are not the problem. It says music-related businesses are reluctant to enter Canada because of the country’s reputation as a file-sharing haven where music fans can download songs illicitly without fear of penalty.
“Why would you spend a lot of money trying to build a service in Canada when Canadians take so much without paying for it?” said Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, which represents major record labels.
“(Canadians) just seem to have no appetite for a legal marketplace.”
Sorry, Graham, but not entirely accurate. We just have no appetite for being screwed over 6 ways from Sunday by the recording industry, who already gets money from us for things that don’t have anything to do primarily with the recording of music–tax on blank CD’s, potential tax on flash drives, anyone? But best not to let those inconvenient little facts get in the way of your perception of reality. Yep, it’s all the fault of the pirates. Those pirates you could easily be convincing to change their minds–I even told you how. Graham, please, just stop failing. Like right now. You’re only making yourself come off like an idiot.
In the meantime, if you want similar functionality to what Pandora offers–with, I think, a somewhat more useful interface–give Jango a try. It, for the moment, hasn’t been drop kicked by the CRIA. Enjoy it while you can. I think I’ll go fire it up right now in tribute.
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Maple Leafs 4, Senators 1.
I almost always get some amount of satisfaction when the Leafs manage to not get stepped on by Ottawa. Lately, it’s been extra nifty considering the game before featured an Ottawa smackdown of near epic proportions. that was the case on Tuesday–surprise freaking surprise, so staring at the score for last night’s game was extra cool. I’m watching the replay now–an unexpected trip to the parents’ place for emergency dog sitting means I missed the live broadcast, and I’m actually sorry I missed this one. Now I just have to put a name to some of these new faces. Hey, if they’re good, it’ll be easy.
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Review: Netflix, the Canadian edition.
So, remember that long ass time ago, when I brought up the fact that Canada was getting its hands on Netflix? Well, they did, and it’s not altogether entirely bad. It helps their case that Canadian customers get a month free to play around with it–something I’ll be taking advantage of rather fully, if you ask me. I look at this from a typical user’s perspective, and a visually impaired person’s perspective. Fortunately, for the most part they come out–in my view, anyway–as a lot of the same thing, so I won’t bother separating the two.
My test movie, after some searching, was Lost in Space (1998). They didn’t have quite a few of the things I’d of prefered to test instead of that–a point against Netflix as a whole, from what I hear, as the American users tend to have the same problem according to sources. What I did notice however was right off the bat, the user interface–at least on the part of their website–is easy to navigate, visually impaired or not. The layout seems simplistic enough. Things are generally where I’d expect them, and you don’t typically have to click more than 3 times to get somewhere. The critical stuff’s two at most–a plus, for sure.
From an actual movie playing perspective, it gets even simpler. Sound quality comes off as TV quality at worst, DVD quality at best–I don’t have the world’s greatest ear for the finer details, plus my speaker system’s a little higher end–your milage may vary. Volume seemed to be acceptably set by default on Windows, though twitter reports from at least one Mac user that isn’t necessarily the case–again, your milage may vary. I do like that if you close the browser or otherwise get the royal boot, it picks up where you left off. Can’t argue with that particular feature much.
They use Microsoft’s silverlight player, which I’m told isn’t world’s greatest to use for sighted people, nevermind the visually impaired. But, even that having been said, it’s not completely useless to either. If you’re in a pinch, or the visual options just don’t do it for you, they have some pretty sensible keyboard shortcuts, which should work whether or not you can see the screen–they worked for me, anyway.
Added to that, as said you get a month free to play around with it, and the subscription’s only $7/month after that. It lets you stream movies/TV shows to any device that supports it, though you can’t rent the DVD’s like you can in the US. Considering I don’t exercise the most legal means of obtaining my local copies of certain media, I didn’t see that as weight either direction on the scale. The site, player and all, responds quickly enough for my taste, and if I had some other device with which to play, I might be inclined to see what I can make it do.
All told, for $7, I might consider sticking with it. If only because it’s another option for movies to watch when Jess and I are sitting around the living room and don’t feel like channel surfing. I might stick it out. What would make me lean more towards sticking it out is a bit more of a selection. Most of the searches I ran came up not available. For a monthly payment, even if it is just $7, I kind of expect a little better than that. Still, they just opened, so I’m willing to give them a chance. Getting more of the movies I’d want to see, though, wouldn’t hurt its case any. In the meantime, thanks for the free month, Netflix. I just might have too much fun.