Lost in the Patch-Rack Jungle

Chatter

2009-12-12T22:43:51Z

Studies such as this one into simian communication remind me of how much we take our own communication and problem-solving capabilities for granted.

The biggest criminals in town

2009-12-12T19:45:32Z

The biggest question raised by this CBC article goes untyped: When will someone investigate Julian Fantino's career-long abuses of his power and authority? How many dirty cops will he protect, and how many corrupt and oppressive practices will he tolerate, in the name of ensuring he and his troops have the widest authority possible to do whatever the hell they want in the name of the gods Lawandorder and Fightinterra?

Meet the new boss

2009-12-03T00:24:27Z

For the remainder of the current US president's term, I shall refer to him as "Lyndon B. Johnson", in honour of his decision to send additional forces to Viet^H^H^H^HAfghanistan and his government's continued support of the ~~Diem~~ Karzai regime.

Good work, President Johnson. I'm sure there won't be any obstacles to pulling out all US forces by ~~2011~~ ~~2012~~ ~~2013~~ ~~sometime before 2020~~ whenever the fuck some president damn well feels like it.

Dirty thirty

2009-11-27T18:28:23Z

On Nov. 27, 1979, at 10:59 am in Windsor, Ontario, I began a long tradition of arriving somewhat late.

Does this mean I'm an old fart now?

The week improved slightly from it's nadir on Tuesday. I learned that I'm not being eaten alive by melanoma, and the antenna I picked up on Wednesday rocks my socks. PBS in high-def, where have you been all my life?

Disgust

2009-11-22T06:08:38Z

After hearing the incredible Malalai Joya speak the horrible truth about Canada's Excellent Afghan Adventure on Wednesday, reading Lawrence Cannon's baldfaced lie about Hamid Karzai being "a legitimate president" the next day made me simultaneously laugh, cry, gag, and seethe with rage.

Worry

2009-11-13T15:37:02Z

I learned yesterday that my cousin Rob is shipping out to Afghanistan in January.

Slice and dice

2009-11-12T03:33:29Z

Tomorrow, I will undergo the first of several surgeries to remove numerous ticking cancer bombs from my back.

I made a dermatologist freak out upon viewing them. She said "wow!" (yes, complete with bang) four times in succession, then touched at least six spots that scared her with barely a few seconds' glance. I was more amused by her reaction than anything else; I already knew they had to go at some point.

Barring a freak tumor discovery, I have nothing to worry about tomorrow. It's outpatient surgery at a clinic mere blocks from home. Never mind me; I'm wishing everyone else luck in dodging misfortune and sickness, in light of ?!'s H1N1 misadventure and the various bugs going around work that have somehow left me alone for the moment.

Back to the future

2009-10-31T02:55:54Z

It's like the late '90s never ended. With the IMF back to being the boogeyman, how much longer will it be until we're all back to openly challenging disaster captialism in the streets and the halls of debate? I want that "we are winning" feeling back. If we can avoid a repeat of the early part of this decade... well, a person can dream, right?

Nestor Makhno, call your agent.

Regression of maturity

2009-10-24T22:51:35Z

I'll take the first three, thanks.

The AC/DC, Metallica, NIN, Tool, and Bob Marley CDs from here would also be nice.

And a bib.

Biographies in seven characters or less

2009-10-24T15:00:03Z

Spotted on the back of a white econobox on Queen St. W. many months ago:

H4X0R

I have a photo of this somewhere, but can't seem to recall the password to my old Photobucket account in order to upload it...

Spotted on the front of a small, yellow sports car in the parking garage underneath a downtown mall/office complex:

♥ 2GIGGL

Spotted on the back of a white modern-type Volkswagen Beetle behind a curio shop/fried chicken joint along Queen St. E.:

BAHHUM

Party at my place in 2014!

2009-10-18T16:07:38Z

Hey default_diva, think you can get one more wicked concert together for this? Need a sound wrangler?

Movie recommendation

2009-10-18T01:13:22Z

The Cove.

It could also be called "The Guy Responsible For Flipper And, Ultimately, Every Dolphinarium On Earth Does Penance For The Unintended Consequences Of His Choices", though it doesn't quite roll off the tongue or fit on onesheets as easily. It connects a lot of figurative dots to tell a sad story.

Don't see it if you're prone to bawling, gagging at the sight of higher lifeform slaughter, or fits of immediate, uncontrollable rage. Alternately, wait for it to become available for home viewing, and try not to destroy your viewing device.

From the "capping off the evening" department: just after getting off the streetcar in front of home sweet home, a man came out of the convenience store across the street, walked past me, and tried to subtly toss a piece of waste paper into the grass by doing it behind his back. I don't think he realized I had a perfect view of his efforts to debeautify the space.

Jerk

2009-10-09T21:10:40Z

To the driver who blew past the crosswalk I was in the middle of, with red stoplights blinking overhead, during a shower earlier today:

We're both damned lucky your careless, reckless ass didn't lose control as you barrelled through the crosswalk without even slowing down. I hope your engine dies in the middle of downtown during evening rush hour.

Love,
auditorydamage

EDIT: Even worse - do battle with Avid Media Composer's dumbshit bugs for eternity. That's about as cruel as I can be at the moment.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

2009-10-08T23:37:28Z

Paging George Orwell. George Orwell to the white courtesy phone, please.

If I don't trust people under authority of The Gubmint with the power to watch everything, I sure as hell won't trust people acting under the authority of a private entity with that power. I wouldn't be surprised to find out this is some bass-ackwards effort by the UK Home Office to outsource the mass surveillance program.

Great X 87997 (or so)-grandma

2009-10-01T16:11:59Z

Clearly, G-d is testing our faith again.

My god, it's full of stars

2009-09-26T17:29:43Z

This is my new desktop background.

Something, something else, and statistics

2009-09-19T14:27:18Z

It's not often that a commemtator openly admits to skewing statistics in order to make a point. Leave it to Toronto's third-shittiest major newspaper[0] to provide such amusement:

From the beginning of the recession last October through April – the worst of the economic crisis – the number of unemployed Canadians increased by 567,000, and 462,000 Canadians were added to the EI rolls over the same period.

While not a strict apples-to-apples comparison (the data reflect net rather than gross labour force changes), this implies that slightly more than 80 per cent of the net increase in unemployment was "covered" by a corresponding increase in EI beneficiaries. This improves to nearly 90 per cent if we focus our attention on the 25-and-over demographic group, which comprises the vast bulk of families.

And if you focus on the people who didn't lose their jobs, the economy looks awesome!

[0] To be clear, all of Toronto's major newspapers are shitty in their own ways. The Globe wishes it was the New York Times, the Star wishes it was the Washington Post and settles for being a wimpy Liberal Party organ, the Sun is written in crayon, and the National Post remains a sad joke pretending to be a newspaper for the self-imagined economic elite.

Nurdee

2009-09-18T01:49:18Z

What can I say -- I'm hopeless.

Not the video card manufacturer

2009-09-10T10:36:42Z

I can't believe the guy behind ATI is still at it.

It's good to see that not everyone gave up as they got old.

Aftermath

2009-09-05T19:27:56Z

I see the communications company hired by Michael Bryant, along with his army of political connections and "investigation team", are hard at work laying out his side of the hit-and-run he committed. I shudder to think of how much influence is being brought to bear on the investigators and media.

Too bad Darcy Allan Sheppard's friends can't afford to hire a hot-shit PR firm and private investigation team to counteract Mr. Former Attorney General's bigshot party. The blizzard of bullshit is obvious, and yet I wonder how many people are going along with it. I wonder if doublethink has become so ingrained in modern political culture that none dare call it spin anymore, even though so many know that's exactly what is being peddled.

I won't even get started on the running skirmishes between car and bike operators in this city. I don't think this incident will shock people into calm reflection. I think there will be more hotheaded incidents and blood on the pavement before enough people cry "ya basta!".

I hope I'm wrong.

Nicknames that refuse to die

2009-09-01T05:27:05Z

Jonathan Torrens will never be able to shake the appellation "Jono".

Last exit

2009-08-27T00:11:35Z

When I'm done on this rock, I want nothing more than an untreated pine box with holes in it and six feet of dirt on top. I'd like to be recycled back into the food cycle. Some people react with surprise and tell me it's illegal, I should get cremated, etc.

After reading this article, I no longer feel as if I'm somehow being unreasonable for wanting a relatively cheap, quiet, relatively ecological exit. I'd prefer the money be spent on a drunken, boisterous celebration.

I suppose I should get this written down at some point, though hopefully it won't have to be applied for another seventy years or so.

Temptation

2009-08-26T00:43:44Z

I'm in the middle of a 24-hour fast in preparation for a visit to the doctor's office tomorrow morning. Nothing but air has passed my lips since 1 am this morning.

My co-worker's ifthar meal smells awesome.

I wonder what scary things the nice lab workers will discover in my bloodstream...

What has been heard cannot be unheard

2009-08-08T18:51:22Z

Overheard, referring to the four women dumped in the Rideau Canal:

"Why would he kill three women- four, three girls and an older woman? I could understand killing one," followed by a woman laughing and saying something about how even she might want to off the ex under the circumstances.

I'm almost grateful that I can't recall her exact words. I'm not even sure they understood the implications of their statements. Neither possibility is comforting.

Needs repeating

2009-08-05T21:43:11Z

CUPE members in Windsor and Toronto, like all other wage-earners in Canada (both union and non-union) experienced very little real wage growth during the past 25 years. Average hourly earnings, adjusted for inflation, increased by only about 50 cents during the past quarter century, according to Statistics Canada. This doesn't justify a blank cheque for unions in bargaining, but nor should it provide space for the employer to demand concessions such as Windsor and Toronto sought.

During that period, real GDP per person in Canada rose by over 100 per cent, but real wages remained stagnant and the gap between the haves and have-nots has widened. The danger for workers is the mindset that if unionized workers lost their benefits and earned less, things would be fairer. What is fair is for more Canadians to be paid what they're worth, receive sufficient benefits and earn a decent pension.
-CUPE national president Paul Moist, "Don't blame unions for city's woes;" Toronto Star, Aug. 5, 2009.

The proponents of unrestrained global capitalism have spent the past thirty years trying to convince people to participate in, and even celebrate, a race to the bottom in terms of compensation for providing labour. Their efforts have proven dreadfully successful; one need only read the comment sections of news sites to view evidence of these propaganda efforts. No one is receiving wage increases equal to the increase in retail prices for commodities, and I don't see any businesses becoming employee-run profit-sharing collectives. Organized labour, as it exists, is dying from its own myopia and and inability to mount any kind of successful counterpropaganda effort. I was stunned to read the above words in a newspaper that spent the entire Toronto civil service strike treating the entire concept of workers' rights as an annoyance, at best. I don't expect to read anything similar for a long time, but I definitely expect more finger-wagging treatises on the supremacy of "the market" above all else, including the well-being of the very people without whom any "market" could exist.

Suffice it to say that both humans living within these walls were infuriated by the mainstream coverage of the strike. Had the strike continued without a tentative agreement, we probably would have followed through on half-baked plans to buy a metric assload of doughnuts and coffee for people on the picket line outside city hall, if only to counteract the barrage negativity aimed at fellow workers and taxpayers by people who should know better than to take management claims at face value.