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sturdy_manakin's LiveJournal:
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| Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 | | 10:56 pm |
my userpic
apparetly SOMEbody changed my userpic. For some reason I suspect mellis. You'll get yours one day. Just you wait. Current Mood:  scheming | | Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 | | 9:45 am |
The end of crazy politics
So the parliament has been prorogued. I suppose I should thank Steven Harper for teaching me a new word. While I must admit that I was never very much in favor of the coalition in the first place, I am even more sad about the outcome. We now have set a precedent that the prime minister can pause the government whenever things are going badly for him. In general that seems like a power that is ripe for abuse, at the expense of negotiation and governance. Also, what we now have to look forward to is two months of 'campaigning' by the conservatives to bad-mouth their opponents before the January budget vote. By then there will be no more coalition, and we will be right back to Harper's trademark governing with a minority as though it were a majority. I think that's the thing that disappoints me the most about Canadian politics right now. There are governments where a minority is the norm, and to get things done the government needs to negotiate and compromise. I think Canada would benefit from an approach like that. It seems we to in these great swings where the left gets in and funds social programs till they're blue in the face and wading in debt, and then the right gets in and starts shutting down daycares and old folks homes so they can balance the budget. It seems like the country might benefit from some fiscal restraint over the next few years, but I'm sick of the Conservatives using that as an excuse to cut services to the voiceless minorities in Canada. You know the ones: children, old people, immigrants, the poor. Do you know anybody like that? Wouldn't it be nice if our government really supported those people? Sigh. I guess it's back to politics as usual. Posted via LiveJournal.app. | | Saturday, November 29th, 2008 | | 7:11 pm |
Vancouver Sun Letter to the Editor`
I sent this this morning, before the Conservatives had retracted the part of their financial update about cutting funding to the opposition. It is short and sweet... 200 words maximum. ************************* Dear Editor, It seems that lately all of our federal political parties are behaving like schoolchildren. Mr. Flaherty’s proposed cuts to the $27 million public funding of political parties are bullying, pure and simple. The Conservatives are claiming that they stand to lose more money than their opponents, but they know full well that their share of this federal funding is only 37 per cent of their total revenues, compared to 63 per cent of the Liberals' funding, 86 per cent of the Bloc's, 57 per cent of the NDP's and 65 per cent of the Greens'. In order to save Canadians less than $1 each, the Conservatives are proposing to cripple all of their opposing parties, forcing them to turn to more private donors for their funding. Not only will this unbalance the checks and balances in our government, it will push our entire country towards an American-style system of lobbyists and corporate funding. The Liberals’ and NDPs’ response of forming a coalition government is similarly childish. Without a mandate from the electorate they shouldn’t be governing, but neither should they stand for the Conservatives’ bullying. I would rather see another election than drastically increased corporate funding of our government. Current Mood:  awake | | 11:14 am |
More Evil Political Maneuvering
Apparently the Conservatives haven't backed down on their plan to cut federal funding of political parties, and have started a coordinated effort to brand their opponents as greedy pigs for keeping their nose in the public trough. They are going to wait and see what the public response is to this conflict between the Conservatives and ALL of the other parties before they decide whether to go ahead with this controversial measure. So, just in case the conservatives are reading my blog, I think the idea of cutting public funding of political parties is FUCKING EVIL, YOU CLASSIST BULLYING MOTHERFUCKERS! The conservatives' game plan is completely designed to entrench their hold on power: either they force another election which they will easily win because they are the only party with money left in the bank OR they cut their opponents total revenues by two thirds while cutting their own by only a third. This has absolutely nothing to do with the good of the country. They are arguing that spending cuts are essential in these tough economic times, but the amount of money they're talking about is less than $1 per Canadian. There is no way that $30m is going to make the difference between a successful economy and a recession. However, it is GUARANTEED to weaken any political party that represents the interest of the poor, or refuses corporate donations. Considering the Conservatives' excellent system of private funding from wealthy individuals and corporations, it is GUARANTEED to send the only credible opposition party into a tailspin. Regardless of your political affiliations, I don't think any of us would support the idea of a single-party Canada. We get the best mileage out of our politicians when there somebody else there threatening to take their job away at the next election. It's called accountability, and it only works when we have strong parties on all sides. The Conservatives are trying to destroy that, and I think they should just stop and get back to doing their job of running the fucking country. FWIW, I also think the oppositions' plan of a coalition government is fucked in the head. Without a mandate from the electorate they shouldn’t be governing, but neither should they stand for the Conservatives’ bullying. I would rather see another election than drastically increased corporate funding of our government. But hopefully it won't come to that SO, I will be writing letters to a bunch of the politicians this weekend and yelling at them all. I encourage you to do the same. Current Mood:  even angrier | | Friday, November 28th, 2008 | | 1:46 pm |
| | Thursday, November 20th, 2008 | | 4:11 pm |
| | Friday, November 7th, 2008 | | 7:23 am |
Found a LJ client for the iPhone :)
Well now that I've found a program that will let me post to LJ easily from my iPhone you might be hearing a little more from me. Here is today's micro-update: This week has been very relaxing and I am feeling pretty good. The day to day stuff that normally piles up an keeps me running around in circles calmed down somewhat, so this week I was able to get some work done on a long-term project ( a chapter in a book!) which feels really good. If this project pans out I will be going to Florence next fall for a writers workshop to finalize my contribution. This weekend I will yet again focus on getting as much work done as possible in as relaxed a manner as possible. And then Tuesday is a Holiday, so Monday is basically Fridy! Yay! Posted via LiveJournal.app. | | Friday, September 12th, 2008 | | 12:39 pm |
MuZach
Sincerely, by Portico. Heard it on the CBC radio 3 podcast and I can't get it out of my head. I think the combination of a sweet voice, dark lyrics, and some rhythmic complexity is pretty much guaranteed to catch my attention. I wandered around mumbling the lyrics to myself for a couple of days, but had to make sure that I explained to Donyne that they lyrics aren't about her. Not that she was worried. You can find it on itunes, or just listen to it here: http://radio3.cbc.ca/bands/Portico/ | | Saturday, August 30th, 2008 | | 8:34 am |
long weekend plans
Mental note: nnext year take time off in July. My vacation in the third week of august was about 40% work, which wasn't quite enough to do all the work that needs doin'. Hope you all are having a fab long weekend, cuz I'm on my way to work. :) | | Sunday, July 20th, 2008 | | 7:02 pm |
Catastrophe averted.
The guys at the apple store concurred with my diagnosis that the hard drive was ganked, and just swapped a new one in with a clean OS on it for me. I had been meaning to get around to doing a reinstall anyways.... So I won't have all of my files until I get a chance to get cozy with my backup drive (which is at UBC) but I have a working computer again! Quite the drama for one day. Glad that I have those backups. And that extended warranty. ;) In my earlier post I forgot to tell you what my favorite feature of my new iphone is: it's water resistant! The reason I know that is that the day after I bought it I was helping D water the curbside garden across the street from our place and I dropped my phone into a bucket of water! I fished it out really quickly and turned it off. It was a little flaky right off the bat, but after a night of baking it under a 100 watt light bulb it seems to be fine. See... water resistant! Current Mood:  tired | | 3:18 pm |
Technology
On the upside, I got myself an iPhone last week. It is totally the best gadget I have ever encountered, and I am still in the honeymoon phase where I can hardly believe that I can look up anything at any time. The awesomeness is endlessly exciting to me, but I suspect my wife is starting to tire of it. Boys and their toys... On the downside, this morning my laptop hard drive committed suicide. Laptop starts up, but only gives a white screen and you can hear the distinct 'tic tic tic' noise coming from the innards. It's under warranty, but when I called Apple to describe the problem the first guy I talked to said "whoo... that's not a good sign". Indeed. To complicate matters, the suicide occurred half an hour before I caught a taxi to fly to Edmonton for a week. I am at the biggest Physics Education conference in North America, but can't write any documents, analyze any data, skype or basically anything at all. At least I can check email on my iPhone. I'm in the West Edmonton Mall at the moment, waitng to see if the Apple goons can give me a new hard drive. They just called my number. More as it happens :) Current Mood: hopeful | | Friday, May 9th, 2008 | | 4:28 pm |
A Place is Found
Well, I had been planning to post a few more of the craigslist scam emails, but it seems a little moot now that D and I have found a place to live! I got a listing from an internet rentals listing company ($100 membership!) and called to inquire. Apparently that listing was out of date: no dice. However a week later the manager (whose name is Irene) called me back and said that something had come up! We were the first and only people to look at it, and signed the papers last Saturday. Yay! The good: • Location: 16th and Ontario. Not too far from UBC, much closer to a fun neighborhood and all of our friends. And everything, really. Point Grey is kindof the middle of fucking nowhere, it turns out. (Not as bad as Delta or New West, mind you, but still pretty bad) • Price: $950 including heat. Even factoring on electricity and laundry on top of that it will be way cheaper than the $1250 + utilities we're paying now. (Awful true fact: our landlords just gave us the bill for the last 17 months of utilities. Their first guess is that we owe them $1080: our entire damage deposit plus an extra $258. I am going to try to cut that down, just cuz they didn't even bother to bill us. Argh!) • Size: It is only a 1 BR, but the kitchen opens right onto the living room and the overall effect is quite spacious! Tall ceilings! Space for yoga! Woo!! Of course, we will have to cut down on our crap collection, but I think this is actually a good thing. Many many items of furniture and books will be coming available soon! Watch this space. • Storage: the storage locker is on the ground floor, is full height, and is long enough to drive a bicycle into. Will wonders never cease!? The bad: • No pets. Of course. :p • No balcony. This one really sucks... it means we can't really keep our pots of herbs. However we'll try to set up a box on a windowsill and see if we can get something growing indoors. D is also planning to get involved in some local community gardens and/or plant a few herbs in the traffic circles, guerilla style. • The manager. Actually I quite like her; she is a chainsmoking bingo-addicted 60-ish woman with a very gruff attitude. She has a benevolent-but-paternalistic attitude, a lot of war stories, and she loves to talk. In that sense, she reminds me a lot of my Dad. I think things will be fine as long as we don't ever cross her. But if she starts to think that we are the wrong kind of people, I have no doubt that she will make our lives miserable. Anywhoo.... who wants to help us MOVE? It's a 2nd floor walkup so we definitely will be needing some goon power for this one. Conveniently, June 1st falls on a Saturday. The usual pizza and beer will be provided. Current Mood:  happy | | Thursday, May 1st, 2008 | | 2:43 pm |
Awesome Craigslist Scams #1
so as you may already know D and I are looking for a place. We've officially given notice and so have been poring over Craigslist etc to try to find somewhere wonderful. Right our first batch of ads we looked at were a few that seemed spectacular. A 1 br apartment on the 23rd floor in yaletown, furnished for $800 / month? What a dream!! Upon further investigation, things looked a little bit shadier however. Apparently the ubiquitous Craigslist scammers often use improbably cheap rentals as bait to snag some unsuspecting renters' dough. We haven't corresponded with any of them very deeply, but they usually claim to be out of town and ask you to send a deposit to a close family member. The awesomest part of these scams is they seem to be run by people with a rather poor grasp of the English language who are in an extreme hurry to send their emails so they can get back to their goatherd or something. Here is the first one, sent to me by the lovely Alisha Manson Manson (sic): ( Cut for rambling scam email ) Current Mood:  amused | | Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 | | 7:26 pm |
Teh Awesum!
FYI, I am the proud recipient of a shiny new Faculty of Science Graduate TA award! These are given out yearly to only five worthy recipients out of all the TAs in the faculty of science, and I got one! The award comes with a certificate and a cool $1000, which will, like double my yearly income. (Clearly there was no math component to the application ;) Woo! I am stoked! Current Mood: stoked | | Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 | | 10:21 am |
Tired and Happy
In the last two days I have had many adventures that have involved much bike riding, eating, visiting, and drinking. Following is a short list (for posterity) ( Cut for boring list of stuff. ) My legs are feeling warm and achy, my back is a little tired, and I am slightly hung over. All in all, a perfect way to spend my two extra days of weekend.
While I riding about the city with great velocity and agility, I often thought of my sister who is broken and can't come riding with me at the moment. It was partly due to her love of her bike that I was inspired to get one, and I hope she'll get better soon so we can go riding together. At which point in time I am sure she will pwn me like the tubby academic I am.
Current Mood: satisfied | | Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 | | 5:39 am |
Early morning ramblings
Well it's 5:42 AM and I have been tossing and turning all night. I've got this flu, you see. During the day I have no energy and can barely keep it together to stay awake through an entire episode of Buffy. But when I go to bed there's precious little sleep to be had. My mind drifts. I start counting my breaths, focusing on the sensation of each one going in and out, trying to slow them down and even them out. But my brain will have none of that. I've had no exercise at all for three days and there's a fever stoking a fire in there. I start thinking about my work (I haven't done any in three days, OMG I'm falling behind!), my van (wouldn't it be lovely to get it running this summer and do a few road trips?), my magic cards (I dreamed a new deck idea...). Eventually I look at the clock. An hour has passed. I've been sick since Monday: head and body ache, dizziness, fatigue, a fever and a wicked cough. It's the same disease that currently afflicts ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) lazarus7... I probably caught it from him when we went to see Cloverfield of the Caribbean on Friday night. We were sipping out of the same rum and coke all night... this disease is clearly my just punishment for swapping body fluids with such a filthy monkey. Aren't fevers amazing? I have been totally blown away by my body's ability to switch modes between chilled and shivering violently and sweltering. Can anybody tell me why we get fevers? I remember something about the temperature extremes chasing off buggies somehow...? I'm hoping to actually go to school today. I definitely won't be riding my bike, but I feel bad taking the bus. I'm not sure if I'm still contagious, and would hate to expose a busful of students to this disease right before they go off to their classes. I remember hearing somewhere that public transit is the #1 place to get communicable diseases. Current Mood: tired | | Friday, February 8th, 2008 | | 9:13 am |
| | Thursday, February 7th, 2008 | | 4:21 pm |
Beard Day 7
( Today's Photo of the Day ) I am definitely getting scruffy. This photo shows the striking impact of a week's growth of beard, bad hair, and a manic expression. The overall impression?
Schizophrenia! | | Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 | | 11:02 am |
| | Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 | | 8:40 am |
Beard Day 5.jpg
( Today's Photo of the Day ) Not much to say this morning. I am having an acute attack of the February today. Stupid rain / slush / grey. Bleah. :p
At least my beard is coming along nicely. |
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